If you are a social media influencer, SEO can help you
Guest Post By Amelia Cottez @ameliacottez
The success of the social media influencer has given rise to more demand for influencers but also more supply; brands are increasingly turning to influencers to promote their products over traditional marketing methods, but they are also getting more intelligent and selective when it comes to who they choose to work with. On the other hand, the career is becoming increasingly popular and competition for influencers is increasing. With so many influencers out there and brands putting out more barriers to entry for working with them, it has become necessary for influencers to do more than just post good content for their follows in order to build their brand. Many of the influencers who have gotten this idea have teamed up with marketing companies and talent agencies to develop their brand. However, few have realized the true power of SEO as a tool for influencers.
Search engine optimization is an ideal marketing strategy for influencers. It is important to incorporate promotional strategies to ensure that your posts and profile are being seen and discovered by a maximum amount of people, getting you more likes, followers and business. Marketing agencies which work with influencers to help manage their social media are costly and do not give individuals the autonomy to develop their brand on their own. Meanwhile, SEO is a proven and effective means of getting your content discovered and gaining a following, and with one-on-one SEO training, you as an influencer can learn the fundamentals of search engine optimization so that you can do your own marketing and SEO for your brand.
In short, if you as an influencer were a bit smarter with SEO, you could do a lot more – there are a lot of missed opportunities. As an influencer myself, I worked with 1on1 SEO training to learn about SEO from the basics to what the experts do. By learning what needed to be done, how to do it, and why it pertained to my branding strategy, I was able to build my online persona from the ground up and get both followers and brand endorsements. Today, I am still performing SEO for my content as an influencer, both with Bruce and on my own. Bruce has allowed me to understand what is SEO and how it pertains to my business, equipped me with the tools I need to practice it, and been a trustworthy teacher and consultant by my side during all stages of my influencer marketing.
What is a social media influencer?
A social media influencer is a user of social media with a large and established following who uses their platform to spread information and promote products to their audience. They work with different brands and companies by posting about their products and getting their fanbase to turn to the brand and purchase the products. Influencer marketing works by using key opinion leaders – influencers who have established credibility in a given industry or by virtue of authenticity, interest and an accrual of fans – to promote a product, under the premise that social media users will trust the influencer’s positive promotion or want to emulate them. The social media influencer’ success is based on his or her ability to gain more following (i.e. influencer a greater number of people) so that they will get more partnership offers with brands who seek them out to market their products.
How can SEO get me more followers?
Search engine optimization is all about understanding the keywords that your target customer (audience) is looking for and how to implement these into your online accounts. When more people who are interested in your online offering find you and your content, you will gain more followers. SEO is the best way to gain followers for influencers, because it increases your visibility to potential consumers.
SEO is a great strategy for influencer marketing; because it offers endless possibilities, meaning there is always more work that can be done to continue improving your digital strategy. Below are just some of the steps to get started with search engine optimization for influencers:
Keyword Research. The first step in SEO is critical for gaining followers, and that is keyword research. By finding out who is your target audience and what they are looking for, you can expose yourself properly and be smarter when pushing your messages out for the products your are selling. Programs to see popular hashtags are already commonly used among influencers, but there are other tools to gauge what people are searching for (i.e. how people are saying a term)
Improved Rankings. With the right keywords and other optimization done to your pages, you will be more visible to the online world. Maybe most importantly, you will be able to improve your rankings on Google and other search engines, literally getting yourself ahead of the competition and in front of people’s eyes. Increased exposure once again means more followers, plus more credibility in your field.
Off-page SEO. With so much emphasis for influencer marketing placed on one’s website and social media, influencers often overlook the importance of marketing efforts that are not directly on their platforms. Off-page SEO consists of different marketing tools that take place on other spots on the internet, and you will learn that they are just as important for improving your rankings and popularity as what goes into making your own sites.
Combining your presence. For a social media influencer, opening up and diversifying your influencer strategy is key to being successful. Having different forms of social media is always important, even if your actual selling or influencing source comes from one main platform. Even more important is having a website – Bruce argues that every influencer must have a website, even if they think they are doing just fine on social media alone. A website increases exposure, makes you look more professional and credible, and is a great way to unify and solidify your brand.
How can SEO get me better connected to brands?
As much as SEO is a strategic influencer marketing tool for reaching your audience, it is equally as useful for getting hired by brands. 1on1 SEO training taught me that SEO is a sort of double edge sword - if you do your SEO right, it is easier to get hired to promote, and at the same time easier to attain and reach and audience, which will go full circle and once again help you to work with brands. The idea for doing SEO with brands in mind is to leverage SEO so that when a brand is searching for their next social media influencer with a focus on what they sell and a suitable audience, they will find you.
So, how exactly can you get better connected to brands so that they will want to hire you to influence for them? With the use of SEO and inbound marketing, you will be standing behind the door that the company opens. Let’s say that you are a fashion blogger or influencer based out of Paris with a focus on luxury brands. If you optimize your digital presence for fashion and luxury properly, as well as emphasize your location, luxury fashion companies will easily find you when they are looking for a French fashion blogger that has credibility in the luxury industry and will understand how to sell their brand and have the adequate audience to sell it to.
How can you make money being an influencer?
Becoming a social media influencer offers a lot of options in terms of making money and a career out of the role. With the help of SEO, it can be easy to start making money from your social media presence, whether you are a seasoned influencer or just getting started.
Direct sponsorships. Direct sponsorship from brands is probably the most obvious way for influencer marketing to make you money. With direct sponsorship, brands offer some sort of remuneration, either by commission or advance payment of a lump sum, in exchange for an influencer posting about their product. Getting direct sponsorship is easier than you might think – contrary to popular belief, you don’t always need a mass following to promote products. If you have a loyal following, a professional profile and a solid branding strategy, you can start getting direct sponsorship with only a few hundred or thousand followers.
Affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is extremely simple and can get you big results. Essentially, it consists of promoting a product and including a link to the product in your content. Then, you will get a percentage of the sale every time someone purchases the product or service via your link. Virtually anyone can get started doing affiliate marketing, and the income from these sales can really add up.
Selling your own products or services?????
Why hire Bruce Jones’ 1on1 SEO Training?
SEO consultant Bruce Jones and 1on1 SEO training have been instrumental in my progression as an influencer, turning my hobby into a career that gets me followers, facilitates sponsorships and business partnerships, and makes me money. I chose 1on1 SEO Training because it allowed me to get personalized help and work directly on my pages while learning, something which classes would not offer. More importantly, choosing one to one SEO training lessons over hiring a marketing company to execute a strategy for me allowed me to actually get insight first-hand what I need to do and why, based on my current business situation. Then, I learned how to do search engine optimization so that I could continually optimize my website even after I was no longer working with an SEO coach, helping me to save money and be more independent. I cannot recommend Bruce and his SEO Training classes more highly if you are an influencer looking to build your business in an affordable, effective way that will give you the most results.
Click here to check out his pricing or get a free hours worth of training and gain some insight as it relates to your business.
