Best way to research the social potential of content (NOT just search potential).
-
I'm wondering if anyone in the community has found a good method for researching the social potential for content. I'll break down what I'm asking exactly so it makes more sense.
In order for a page to get ranked highly on Google for a keyword it needs authority (usually). With social media having an ever increasing impact on the authority of content, creating content that has social value (shared, liked, talked about, etc) can really help increase the authority of that page in Google's eyes. In saying this if content is created that people search AND talk a lot about, it's authority will rise quickly, thus getting traffic through that keyword is easier and faster (not to mention your link building happens for you organically).
I've formulated a pretty good keyword research process to find the search potential of creating content around that keyword; however I am looking at how to research the potential social value of content. I'm thinking the best way would be to crawl the social platforms and find trends in what people are talking about for the last x amount of time. Must be some patterns to look for in things like hashtags.
At the end of the day I'd like to have content created based on both search keyword and social research.
I'm looking for advice from people who have found a good way to do this social research on what they look for / what tools they use.
-
I agree it's best to communicate with people that actually need your product; however I'm talking from an SEO point of view on authority. Let's say you sell a product that uses a certain type of technology. For example you sell an electronics product that utilizes a new open-source logic board. The people you sell this electronics product to might not care about, or be talking about the logic board, but members of the open source logic board community would certainly be interested in hearing about an application built from it.
One of the big factors in SEO is the authority of pages and domains. If the logic board community starts talking about your content about the application of their board, this signals to Google that it's an authoritative source of information, thus the domain it's associated with is authoritative. While this might not seem the most productive in terms of getting sales short term, it raises authority which makes ranking for keywords easier.
I wouldn't make a piece of content unless it's clear from the keyword research that traffic can be created from it. If it's easily sharable this raises the authority of that content in a fast, almost automatic way.
I guess a better way to ask my question is: Is there an easy way to identify the kinds of things people are talking about on social channels? Not only this but the people in your target market?
My goal is to create content around social trends on these networks that has high search potential in it's keywords.
-
I'll check out reddit. I've heard of some good growth hack stories through utilizing that platform. Thanks!
-
I'm wondering if creating content to fit what's trending is a solid organic SEO concept. By nature, trends are fickle, while SEO is a strategy play. The topics that are trending today: 1) May not be relevant to your business and 2) May not be of interest to your audience. Maximizing social is not about getting in front of as many people as you can, it's about getting in front of as many of your audience members as you can. Most business owners don't tend to be keen on marketing to people who are never going to buy their product.
Yet the stuff that that is relevant to your specific audience is certainly floating around in social media. In fact, it's likely that it's being talked about, commented on, shared, liked, +1'd, tweeted, and otherwise engaged with in social media at this very minute. The key is to have a clear understanding of who your audience is and what kinds of content they like, what they need, what they don't need, what's important to them, what's going to help them chose to buy your product. It's research into those things that's going to pay off best for the marketer and the business owner.
-
I have one word for you: REDDIT
Daily perusing of reddit will keep you up on all of this. Also, sharing content on Reddit will let you know quickly what's worthwhile and what's not.
There isn't a fancy tool that will do it for you in my example. I just think reading the reddit pages for 15 minutes a day will do you so much good in this regard.
That's all my input.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using BUFFER in Social Sharing
Hello everyone, I am inclining to use a platform from which to post my social content. I use mainly facebook, twitter, linked in, google +. I used Hoot, but found it difficult to include Linked In, and several other social media sites. Somebody has experience using BUFFER? Ive read about it, and it seems great! Would you recommend it? Thanks for your comments,
Social Media | | JesusD0 -
CSVs From Social Export are Blank
Hi everyone, I'm exporting social metrics as CSV's, but the CSV's don't have any data. This is happening with both the dashboard and the Facebook reports. There is plenty of data, it's just not exporting to the report. What could be going on? Thanks.
Social Media | | kenc1380 -
Will we penalized for using social media contests to gain fans/followers in the future?
To help build up my company's website, we've been making a huge push in social media and to gain followers on our social pages, we've recently been running a couple of contests. So far it's been a great success - more traffic to the social media pages and more traffic to the website. We are considering making the contests a regular part of our social media & SEO strategy. In the past, our social media strategy has relied completely on "organic" likes (no incentives to follow our company's page) and posted content articles, pictures, etc. In the past month or so, we've began to use giveaway contests as a way to gain followers. Since focusing more on running contests, we've seen a huge increase in actively on our social media pages. We've continued to regularly post content articles, interesting pictures, etc, during the contests, but haven't see the same level of engagement that we do with the contest posts. Right now, it's looking like there is no down-side to running the contests as we're seeing an increase in traffic on the social pages, getting some additional traffic to posts and on our site, but before we start to completely commit to this strategy, I have a couple of questions: Is there a reason we shouldn't continue to run these contest to increase fans and interaction? How likely is it that Google will penalize us in the future for gaining followers through contests (instead of "organic" followers that followed us without an incentive)? There are some fans/followers that are serial contest entrants and are always entering a contest - could having too many of these fans raise a red flag for Google and the other search engines? How often is too often to be running a social media contest? Basically, I want to make sure that we are using social media as a long term SEO tool and are setting ourselves up to be successful in the future and not get penalized for gaining followers the wrong way. Any tips, strategies or advice is very much appreciated. Thank you!
Social Media | | airnwater0 -
Google+ Business page just not showing :-(
Good morning from Pollen level moderate wetherby UK pass me another Benadryl Plus wetherby UK Having jumped into the world of Google plus my objective was to create a business page that would appear when the Google+ serp is clicked on. Unfortunately my labour & toil has not paid off 😞 Having created a Google+ business page & set it to default ( I think ) it still points to the vanilla Google+ page. Below is my frustration chartered in three sraeps http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/serp-google-plus-link-step-1jpg.jpg http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/google-plus-landing-page-error-step-2.jpg http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/business-page-built-hodgson-plus-step-3.jpg So my questiuon is please - "How do i get the business page to be the default everytime a user clicks on the Google + link in the SERPS?" Any insights welcome 🙂
Social Media | | Nightwing0 -
Ways to get the most out of your content/blog posts?
I've been working on posting more content on my blog and now I need a workflow to help me get more exposure on my posts. Currently this is what I'm doing: 1- Write Post 2- Add it to my favorites in Stumbled Upon 3- Post it to Facebook 4- Pin it in Pinterest I would love some more ideas. My goal at this point is to gain greater web exposure. I would love to be they type of blog others actively follow.
Social Media | | continuumphoto0 -
Optimal Placement For Social Buttons on a Website
Hello, I want to know what the best versions of twitter, facebook, and Google+1 buttons are, and where optimum placement is. site: bobweikel.com but I want to know in general as well Thanks!
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
Where is the best place to put your FB 'like' and G+1 buttons??
Do you guys think there is a more strategic place to place these buttons? below the fold, above, in the top nav menus...?? I would love to hear your thoughts..
Social Media | | robertrRSwalters0