The best B2B online marketers are constantly integrating SEO into their organizations’ broader marketing initiatives. My colleague, Casie Gillette, has touched on a few ways to break down those silos and get your B2B search and social teams working together. You can find those resources below:
I wanted to do something similar while focusing specifically on how social media can tie into your link building initiatives, designed to improve SEO performance.
Link building done on its own is not nearly as effective as it can be when incorporating the social media teams’ efforts. Below is a graphical representation of the process B2B organizations could be following when it comes to merging link building and social media.
Link Building and Social Media Process
In this blog, I walk through three tactics for engaging with link building prospects that use social media as the first touch point.
Tactic #1 – Create Segmented Private Lists on Twitter and Monitor w/ TweetDeck
Chances are, both SEO and social media teams are aware of how to set up a private list and use TweetDeck. However, in my experience, the social team may not be thinking about link building opportunities, and link builders may be only thinking about email outreach before leveraging social outreach.
Two private lists from TweetDeck are in the screenshot above.
TechCrunch List – This list is made up of TechCrunch’s entire writing staff. Their accounts can be found starting here if you would like to set this up for yourself (note: you will have to follow links to CrunchBase profiles). If any of these journalists happen to Tweet something I can help with or something relevant to one of my B2B clients, I try to jump in right away. Below is an example from earlier this year. I engaged with a TechCrunch writer who asked a question I could help him with. His beat also happened to align with a client at the time:
While I reached out to help with an SEO related question, the idea is that helping him with something I have knowledge in means he may be more welcoming to a news pitch from me than if I had not helped him out.
Manufacturing Partners’ List – A current client in the material handling industry has a handful of manufacturing partners. I have them all into one private list and use it to stay attune with what they are sharing and talking about. If I see something worth noting, I communicate with our SEO / SMO Analyst, Haley Sciola, regarding social engagement and link building opportunities. Starting our relationship on social led to a 66% response rate for email outreach for one specific initiative (6 of the 9 targets we emailed responded to us about working together).
Tactic #2 – Use Topsy or Buzzsumo to See Who is Sharing Your Content on Twitter
Is your content team creating valuable resources that are getting mentioned around Twitter? Maximize the value of your content initiatives by dropping the URL into either Topsy or Buzzsumo to see the individuals and companies sharing it. Then, review and add them to a prospecting list, making note of how your organizations might be able to work together.
After that, send an email thanking them for sharing your content and mentioning what you had in mind for collaboration.
For example, I dropped Casie’s recent article into Topsy and it shows 83 Twitter accounts who shared it. These folks are likely already familiar with KoMarketing due to sharing our content, making them productive link building prospects.
Tactic #3 – Push New Twitter Followers to a Google Spreadsheet w/ IFTTT
Are you using IFTTT? If not, you should! Our SEO / SMO Analyst, Haley Sciola uses it to push new Twitter followers of our clients into a Google spreadsheet. By doing this for your B2B organization, a member of your SEO team can review this list one time per month for potential link building prospects. It also happens to be a productive way for your social team to monitor new followers. You can find the IFTTT recipe here (keep in mind you will need your organization’s Twitter credentials).
Bonus: Running a Twitter chat? Or using a certain hashtag for a social media campaign? Push those using it on Twitter to a Google doc using IFTTT. Again, have your B2B SEO review this spreadsheet for link building opportunities.
SEER Interactive created the best resource for creating more IFTTT recipes that you can find here.
Final Thoughts:
These are some of my favorite most effective ways to get B2B organizations’ search and social media initiatives working together as a cohesive force. Remember, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That said, the key to the tactics above is communication. Search and social teams should be sitting together and constantly “replying all” in email communication to ensure the above tactics are executed as best as they can be.
Written by Brendan Cottam. To read the full article, click here. For more information on creating your own online brand, custom WordPress website and social media strategy, please visit us at www.mydigibrand.com and follow us everywhere @mydigitalbrand.