Best Social Media SEO Practices For 2024

Ever wondered how the strategic sprinkle of keywords can transform your online visibility? Join us, Terrah and Audrey from TJ Creative Agency, as we uncover the power of SEO in the social media world that's rapidly becoming a discovery engine for businesses and personal brands alike. 

Get ready to unlock the secrets of standing out in a digital sea of content. We're breaking down platform-specific strategies for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram that will help your videos pop in search results, and discussing how tools like Google Search Console and SEMrush are vital in steering your keyword ship.

Chapters

• 0:00 SEO and Keywords in Digital Marketing
• 10:27 SEO Strategies for Social Media Platforms
• 22:41 SEO and Keywords for Social Media

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever wondered what goes into your favorite brand's digital marketing strategy?

Speaker 2: 0:04

I'm Tara, the founder of TJ Creative Agency and I'm Audrey, the creative marketing director of TJ Creative Agency. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, a content creator or just an overall creative person, will teach you how to create the perfect social media strategy and build your brand online. All right, welcome back to social sessions podcast. It is the first episode of 2024. You guys, welcome back. We took, I believe, two weeks off and we missed you, and now we're back in 2024 and it's going to be a good year and we're starting the year off with an episode about SEO and keywords because, as we know, we've talked about this a lot, but I don't think we've really gone into detail about SEO or about keywords.

Speaker 2: 0:54

I know we've talked about it, but social media has shifted so much since it started. It very much used to be just, quite literally, a social place. You're posting for your friends, you're posting for your family, whatever, and it's obviously we know this, we've it's obviously shifted and now people are finding out about companies, they're finding influencers, they're finding products, they're finding services, they're finding restaurants, and a lot of that has to do with searchability. So, although social media is not a search engine per se, like by definition, there's a search bar, which means it is searchable.

Speaker 2: 1:36

So before we jump into that, we obviously have our little tip or update of the week. This one's kind of fun. I actually I saw this like I wrote this in the outline and then I started seeing it today on Instagram. But Instagram is offering a new ad yours template on stories, so you know how they have those things Like the one that's going.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Is that what you posted today? Yeah, I was going to say.

Speaker 2: 2:02

The ones that are going around now that I've seen a lot of, are usually like grids, right, it's like six photos of you and your partner this year, or one photo of you from every year for the last, like six years, or whatever those types of things, and then it literally has a button that says add yours and you click it and then there's like thousands of people doing this. So it's like that, but you I can't tell. I'm going to look at it. Actually, we're going to do this in real time, because I don't know if this means you create the template, or let's see if I have it. There's template created and then you just pick one.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Okay, so basically what it is is you would like take a photo, add whatever you want, right? Let's Again doing this in real time. I'm going to draw and then it just is. You essentially make your own template, so then people can reuse that.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Reuse that template which is so they're trying to take away from, like outsource.

Speaker 2: 3:00

I thought it was cool because I think it can increase your engagement and, I'm understanding this correctly, it feels like it could be one of the only things on stories that can drive new people to your profile. Normally, stories are really only for the people who already follow you. People are not really finding you through your stories, but with this, if you create a template and it like goes viral or whatever, then there's a chance that people can find you through it. So I don't know.

Speaker 1: 3:34

I thought that was kind of interesting.

Speaker 2: 3:36

It says okay from where I had seen this. I saw it on social media today and they said to create and add yours template, you'll first add any gifts, text or images to your story that you want to be a part of the template. Then select the add yours template from the sticker tray, choose the elements to pin as part of your template and then post it so that way, whenever anybody you know uses it. Yeah all of that will be part of your quote-unquote template.

Speaker 2: 4:05

Okay so that's kind of interesting. I didn't really, to be honest, I didn't really know where these templates were coming from before, and now like anyone can make them. I don't really know like they were going around, but I'm like who's starting these?

Speaker 1: 4:18

yeah, I did to kind of. I seen a few people and I'm like this must be something.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Yeah, and by the time they get to you, there's normally 10,000 people who've already used it. So I'm like where did this come from?

Speaker 1: 4:28

If you want to see me, audrey looked like six years ago.

Speaker 2: 4:31

I don't look the same at all. No, you don't I look very different.

Speaker 1: 4:35

If you want to.

Speaker 2: 4:36

I was gonna say if you want to see me go through like four different hair stages bangs, black hair, red hair, orange hair it's all up there.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Oh me that you had that black hair. I was like no way.

Speaker 2: 4:50

Full. Would you do it today? No, I mean, I went darker. Now I think it's lightened up a little bit, but it was darker. Like a darker yeah yeah, but it's not like yeah. So I don't really know. I don't know if I would do it again. I didn't dis, I didn't like it with the bangs, but without the bangs I was like it actually was kind of cute.

Speaker 1: 5:16

I know I've done all the hair colors too like.

Speaker 2: 5:20

Yeah, I was going back like artists because it grows out, and then it.

Speaker 1: 5:25

And then it grows out and then it's like who, who's gonna dye their hair like every two weeks, yeah reds, reds, a lot.

Speaker 2: 5:32

I was like red, red, and then I was even looking back like 2021. I was a lot blonder, like I mean, I know I was a lot blonder, but I was blonder than I thought. I was, like I look back.

Speaker 1: 5:41

I'm like, oh I was fully blonde.

Speaker 2: 5:44

Mm-hmm so yeah cool.

Speaker 1: 5:47

I love that update.

Speaker 2: 5:49

You know, gone through, gone through a lot of hair and that's what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Try them all out. Then there's people that never, ever change their hair. They have the same hair. Damn like don't you get bored, but even like cutting my hair now I'm like damn, I miss when it was long and Right, I don't think I'm gonna cut my hair again for a while until I'm like old, old, like I tried, it was fun and I never. I could be like 60 with long hair, but maybe I.

Speaker 2: 6:19

Mean I like my I Don't know I like my hair length now, sometimes, sometimes like I can't do a high pony. Really not yet I mean I can, but I think it looks weird, so I don't. So we're doing low. I can do a high bun, anyways. So that's that on the hair.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Anyways, okay, getting into the actual topic of the week, talking about SEO, talking about keywords. So basically, like, let's start with what is SEO? Because it's. I think it's a term that's thrown around a lot and I don't know if everybody really knows what it means. So SEO stands for search engine optimization.

Speaker 2: 7:04

So for a long time, when people were talking about SEO, they were typically talking about Google searches and the SEO on their website. It wasn't really a thing that was talked about on social media that often. I think YouTube is maybe the exception, because YouTube is also considered a search engine and not a social media platform. So that's like probably the only exception here. But otherwise, when people talked about SEO, it was really about the website and the way that it worked back then was people would really just try and use as many keywords as Possible in their blog titles and in their articles, thinking that it would rank them higher on the search engines.

Speaker 2: 7:48

So, for example, if you're a med spa who offers Botox, you might have written a blog post about the benefits of Botox and tried to use the word Botox as many times as possible and use the location that you're in as many times as possible. So let's say you're a med spa in Austin, you would probably try to use the word Botox and the word Austin as many times as possible in this article, with the assumption that if somebody Googled Botox in Austin, that blog post would rank pretty high on that first page right. That was kind of the understanding of SEO a few years ago, but now it has shifted a little bit, where SEO applies more to social media as well, that previous SEO still exists although it's not.

Speaker 2: 8:38

It doesn't really work that way anymore. It still exists, but the algorithms and the search engines are much smarter. So just because you were to use the word Botox 15 times in one article doesn't mean it's going to rank any higher, that's paid, yeah, so that doesn't really.

Speaker 2: 8:54

They're just much smarter. It used to work that way, probably 10 years ago, and now it. The word count matters hardly at all, but, like I said, it has impacted social media now. So who sweet defines social SEO as the practice of adding text based features like captions, alt text and closed captioning to your posts to help people who are browsing social platforms easily find your content. So, basically, what it comes down to is social media has a search bar and people are using that search bar to find restaurants, businesses, products, services, whatever, around them. So like, for example, I'm sure a lot of you already do this I'm just giving you the basic rundown just in case some of you don't, but I'm sure somebody already does this Like, if you're looking, you're going out to dinner on Friday night and you're like I want to try somewhere new.

Speaker 2: 9:51

I do this a lot. My friends and I do this a lot when we're out of town. So, for example, like when we were in New York, we're trying to find the best bars and the best clubs in New York and we went to TikTok. We were like best bars, like lower East side best bars, whatever. So that's kind of the searchability. So that way anyone who would have made content about bars in the lower East side, that content would have come up. So it registers and you can even see it. I'm pretty sure it bolds the words like where they found that, if it's in the caption.

Speaker 2: 10:22

It like bolds them when you search.

Speaker 1: 10:27

I think a lot of people miss the bow on that, on SEO so much. When it comes to social media and their own captions and things like that, like you don't, they don't consider it as important factor as it is. You know, even influencers, I think they struggle with using, like being forward with their SEO in their captions, in their texts, and I put you behind that. That could be why you're not growing.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Yeah, it's really just like it's. It's big for growth. Like Tara said, it's big for having people find you. Right, because people are searching, that's how they're they're finding things. Even, like as an influencer, like it's really obvious, thinking about how it would impact your business, right, if you sold a certain product, make sure you use the title of that product, the name of that product, who you're talking to, but the same goes for influencers Like you, can you?

Speaker 2: 11:30

I mean this is we'll go into this a little bit in the next section about keywords but just knowing who you're talking to, there's keywords that apply to your audience specifically. Or like wellness influencers might use the word wellness, might use the word health, might use the word if it's like a workout, think of how people are going to search that right. Like, if someone's looking for a lower body workout, you might want to put lower body workout. You know what I mean. Like just be very straightforward, so, and that's that's does kind of lead us into like how people choose the keywords, because this is actually a question. I've gotten a lot and it doesn't all just come from your mind, by the way, like it's not just what you think your audience is talking about and the language that you think your audience is talking about, because I've talked about this before too where sometimes there's things like there's different ways to say the same thing. You know what I mean. So, like I've used this I know I've used this example a ton, but I'm going to use it again I always say creative rut.

Speaker 2: 12:35

When I can't think of something, when I feel like I'm not creative, I always say the word creative rut. That's my language, though that doesn't mean everybody that listens to this podcast or follows us on social media uses that lingo. In fact, I have found that a lot more people use the word creative block than creative rut, so that, something as simple as that, it means the same thing. Right, we're talking about the same thing. They both mean you just don't really have any creative inspiration, but the language is different. So if somebody was searching up, like, how to get out of a creative block no-transcript, that's going to look different than if somebody searches up how to get out of a creative rut. You know what I mean, yeah, so that's why I think it's really important to recognize that these keywords are not just what you assume your audience is saying.

Speaker 2: 13:22

There's actually ways to search for it. The first one that I've told you guys about a million times is using the auto populate on the search bar to your advantage. So in this case you would kind of use what's in your mind, for example, like if we I do this on Pinterest a lot, I'll just search social media and I want to see what auto populates. Or if I type in like digital marketing, what's coming up under there, that's a good indicator of the language that people are using. But there's also actual tools, for example Google Analytics. If you are already using Google Analytics, you might know about this. But if you go to like the search console within your Google Analytics, it's now I think it used to be within Google Analytics and it now appears to be its own thing. But if you go into the search console, it tells you what exact words are bringing people to your website through the search engine.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Do you think chat GPT2 is another form of finding that out?

Speaker 2: 14:25

I don't know. I'm hesitant to ask chat GPT things because it doesn't have a ton of knowledge past 2021.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:33

So in just with. I think chat GPT is great. I think there are a lot of benefits to it, but I hesitate sometimes, just within our industry, because things move so fast. Key words that it might have said were big in 2021 might not be as applicable now.

Speaker 1: 14:54

I also feel like chat GPT is not as good as it was when it first started. I don't know why, but I've used it in the last few weeks. I'm like, wow, you were smarter two weeks ago. What it's putting out is not.

Speaker 2: 15:06

Yeah, whenever I have it write something, I'm like I have it. I usually use it as a base for the outlines for these and then I go in and add, because it doesn't add any actual information, it just kind of organizes it and I'm like, okay, well, this is not helpful to me really at all. So sometimes I think it's helpful. Usually it's like take it with a grain of salt and you'll probably have to tweak some things. But with specifically digital marketing stuff, sometimes I have a hard time with it because I'm like I don't even know, things just change so fast. Even things from six months ago are typically considered old now. But yeah, anyways. Google search console within Google analytics really helpful. Also, sem rush, the keyword like magic tool. I've used that before. That's really helpful. You can answer the public, can be really beneficial. I use that more for ideas, but it can still be helpful within keyword searches. But there's actually tools like those. Those are the three big ones I would say is the SEM rush one, the Google search console and just the auto populated search bars. That's probably where you're going to get most of the information. So you just start with at least on SEM in the search bar those. You'll probably start with just something blanketed from your industry. So, again, we'll go back to Med Spa. Even if you use the word Med Spa, see what's coming up and it'll give you things that are synonymous or things that apply to a Med Spa, or Botox or filler or whatever. Use pretty general words that would apply within your industry. That's going to help you determine what lingo people are using. So that should help you actually determine the keywords that you should be using.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Now we'll go into the best strategies for each platform. So, obviously, there's different places within each platform that you can really utilize SEO. So on Instagram, we'll start there, obviously, optimize your profile. We've talked about this. Keywords in your bio, in your name, make your name searchable, all of that. Then, yes, use alt text. Getting to that, because it's still reading that. The algorithm is still reading it. You know what I mean. So put keywords in there. Normally, it's just like I'm not saying just throw a bunch of keywords in there, because I don't know how much that is going to help you, but even just describing the image in a way that uses some of your keywords can be helpful. Use the keywords. Obviously, this is the most obvious one and the one that I think most people think about is use them in your captions. That's fairly simple. Use closed captioning in videos.

Speaker 2: 18:05

This is why so many people use captions on their videos on Instagram and on TikTok, because it helps the algorithm kind of understand what you're talking about. And lastly, I don't think people think about this as SEO, but tag your location. It's such a big one, it's huge. It's huge because then it kind of keeps you from having to type out where you're located. So if someone's typing Botox in Austin and you tag that you're in Austin, it is keywords. It's able to categorize and organize you and your posts based off of where you are. So, especially if you are service-based, that's going to be huge for you. You need to tag location on every post for all of our service-based clients.

Speaker 2: 18:53

So then, moving on to TikTok, I feel like there's fewer places where you can actually utilize it. But same thing with your profile Make sure your bio, your name, all of that on your profile is optimized. Make sure to have some sort of keywords in there, something that's searchable. This is where I think having that research on your keywords is going to be huge is, if you know, like one word that is really used a lot within your industry and that kind of encompasses what you do use. That Also. This one is where it gets a little bit interesting. They say, to say your keywords in your videos and use captions, but this is like something that's different. I believe YouTube does this too, but this is something that differs from Instagram is they pick up on the keywords that you're actually saying in your videos on TikTok and they don't do that on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 19:49

It's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2: 19:51

And lastly, same thing with captions and hashtags. That's very, very. If you're not doing that by now, I know I'm such a.

Speaker 1: 20:02

I'm so like. I know we've heard from even like the head of Instagram, that hashtags don't work, but I just I know they do. I've had we've just had too much success of people saying that's how they found us was through searching a hashtag.

Speaker 2: 20:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:16

That I can't. I can't get away from it. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 20:18

I don't think they're like do or die. I don't think they really mean a ton anymore, but it also like I don't think it hurts you to do it either.

Speaker 1: 20:28

Yeah. You know, I think it does hurt you if you don't do them. I think like there's a client now that I'll go out like sometimes, if it's not done, I will go back and add them, because I do think, especially the location based hashtags it's like the biggest thing for me, but it it like you said, it's what people are searching and so that's why I'm saying but you've said before, too, that you use them kind of as keywords.

Speaker 2: 21:00

Yeah. You use hashtags as keywords, yeah, so I don't think it really differs that much if you use them as hashtags and I just type out the keywords. You know what I mean? I think it's it's populating. I just think the way the algorithms are working now is it's kind of populating the same way If you type in Botox, if you have hashtag Botox or you say these are the benefits of Botox in your caption, it's going to populate the same way because it's going to register that. That is what this post is about.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Do you think you find like in that caption or text, are you adding the city or are you adding that? I just tag it, you just tag the city.

Speaker 2: 21:39

Yeah, I put every known. Again. I'll put hashtags more so, honestly, more so to appease clients than to really like Generate, make a difference. Yeah, more so to be like. I'm doing this because you asked me to do this. Yeah, last platform that we're going to talk about is YouTube. Like I said, youtube operates a little bit differently because it is a search engine. At the end of the day, I believe it's the second biggest search engine behind Google is YouTube. So they operate more as a search engine than a social platform, which I think confuses some people, because it does also operate in a way that looks like a social platform, right? So if you subscribe to people, you can comment on things, but at the end of the day, it's you're usually searching what you're looking for, you're searching who you're trying to watch, you're searching what topic you're trying to watch, things like that. I found that the YouTube key like.

Speaker 2: 22:41

it's a whole different game than what we do on Instagram or yeah, so so the places you can use keywords and your SEO in your video file name, which that might surprise some people because that's not shown publicly at all. But if you have a file that's named like montage 0708.like mp4. That's what I mean by video file name. Instead, maybe it should be like it let's say it's a travel montage and it's like a pet, you're in Paris, whatever. Use the word Paris in there, use like travel blog, use things like that, because that ranks and it tells the algorithm.

Speaker 2: 23:23

I shouldn't even say it ranks higher. It doesn't rank anything, but it tells the algorithm what your video is about. So if someone searches Paris travel blog, your video will come up somewhere in that search. It might not be on the first page, but it's going to help. Obviously, the title of your video is that's, I think, what everybody assumes in the description box. The same thing with TikTok. Say it out loud and if you add closed captioning, those all help with your search ability and places that you can put your keywords. They have also said that how to videos are the most searched videos on YouTube. Consider making a how-to video, or consider like or using it in your text or in your casting.

Speaker 2: 24:08

Yeah, like just showing it. I mean, I think if you did a how-to video, if you titled it a how-to video and then it's not, I think they can register that.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:17

But just consider, like, either making one or presenting it in that type of a way, Because they do the best. What I think is interesting is YouTube themselves has said tags don't do anything in terms of ranking your searchability. They don't play. In fact they said don't play any role in your searchability. It really only helps with misspellings. And I guess what they mean by that is if you posted a video that was like something DIY and someone in the search bar put DIY, it registers that, oh, they're looking for a DIY.

Speaker 1: 24:57

Yeah okay.

Speaker 2: 24:59

So those are all of the places you can use them on YouTube, tiktok and Instagram. And the last thing I really wanted to cover on SEO and keywords is kind of monitoring them and how to determine, like, what's working for you, same thing as how to find your keywords. That Google Search Console is gonna help you a lot in terms of what keywords are driving people to your website and, although it's not necessarily linked to your socials, it's still a good indicator of what words are working, and so that's something I would definitely pay attention to. Even, like when I do Pinterest, I do like a keyword situation every two weeks probably. Then it doesn't have to be super in-depth. I'm just searching, I'm looking at our analytics and I'm seeing okay, what is our audience interested in? The? Okay, these are the subcategories within that, like I just looked this morning and entertainment is one of our highest. But once you go into that, then you can click on it and see there's like subcategories within that. So our like top interest is, oh, it's art and the top one under that. If you click on it, photography and illustrations and poster designs are like the top thing. So if I were to use words like that, it's going to register on Pinterest. That's the topic and it's gonna be fed to our audience more because it knows that that's what our audience is interested in.

Speaker 2: 26:32

So things like that, just keeping on top of all of that and it's honestly your keyword in your SEO is gonna look pretty similar. The analytics are gonna look pretty similar to what you already do on socials. So engagement metrics, like your likes, your comments, your shares, things like that your website clicks all of that kind of stuff is gonna be a good indicator. Especially your audience reach, like accounts reached when you go on there and you look at new followers. That's gonna be a good indicator that you're hitting a lot of those marks. It's gonna be hard to find okay, this word specifically is linking people to our website, like I don't. It's gonna be hard to get that specific, but just seeing your overall engagement marks are gonna be helpful in terms of seeing am I talking about the right things, am I using the right lingo and like all of that kind of stuff, other things checking to see impressions, checking to see how often your social media posts come up in search results, which I believe you can check just by the Explorer page. That type of stuff is all gonna be able to tell you are you using the right words, everything like that. It's gonna look very similar to what you're doing already within social media marketing. It's gonna be a lot of the same analytics and a lot of the same measurements, but just showing you a general arc of like are you hitting the right marks, are you talking about the right things? And just keeping up with that regularly.

Speaker 2: 28:09

Like I said, I do the Pinterest one every time I go to make more Pinterest content. I check Google Analytics, probably every week. Every other week Doesn't mean I'm writing it down every week, but I'm just checking in on it. I'm checking, like every time we do our monthly analytics. I'm looking at what content is performing the best. I'm looking at all of that stuff. So it's probably honestly already stuff that you are looking at and keeping track of.

Speaker 2: 28:35

Yeah. Do you have any thoughts overall about social SEO?

Speaker 1: 28:42

No, I think just that, being aware of using it on YouTube, I noticed that when I would do kind of when I would care. This is how I realized was when I was carrying over the same caption from, like, say, I put on TikTok over to YouTube and it wouldn't generate anything. I was like what is the issue? And so I did a deep dive and I feel like that one is much more Google related. So it's kind of as you would search in a Google search. Is that's how you should title your stuff and that is how you should simplify it, almost like dumb it down, and also think that the biggest thing is the location thing I noticed on TikTok.

Speaker 1: 29:33

We have several clients that don't put the city and the ones that do, it's clear because the growth is constant, like it's constantly happening. Even if I'm not posting because I believe that there's been so much of the location tag that if you're searching plastic surgery, austin, like there is, that's it. Because I've done it for two, three years, you know what I mean. So the location is super important. The alt text, I think, is, too, something you should consider. Is it's not supposed to be necessarily a text. It's not supposed to be. You're supposed to be describing the image, not necessarily a caption.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Right, it's not like a and it's not. I think the other thing is people will, yes, copy and paste the caption, or they just don't key words in there, and the idea I don't know if everybody knows what alt text is for. It is for a, like, if your photo isn't loading, but it's also for people who can't are, like, visually impaired. That's really the entire reason for it and, yes, we as marketers are using it more as you know SEO, but it also.

Speaker 2: 30:48

I think people don't realize that Instagram auto does that anyways, from my understanding, even if you don't go in. That's why it's under advanced options, because Instagram is going to do it anyways. They're going to be able to give a kind of general overview of what your post is for the people that are visually impaired. So if you go in there, you're just giving it more specific detail, More specific.

Speaker 1: 31:13

I actually want to try it, being like super, super. I just want to do it and see if it helps. Like it, see if it affects.

Speaker 2: 31:23

I do it sometimes and I'm going to be honest, I don't think it makes an insane difference.

Speaker 1: 31:27

But I don't think any, just one thing of this space, but if you did it for like a long period of time, I wonder if, if, if your ranking does, if it does affect your ranking in the algorithm.

Speaker 2: 31:39

I think it's just all of it. I think if you're doing all of it and you're consistently talking about that's the other thing. You have to be talking about this stuff constantly. It's not like you make one post again going back to the med spa situation. It's not like you make one post about Botox and that's it. You have to be consistently talking about the same stuff and that's what's going to help you rank as well. Yeah, so that is that.

Speaker 2: 32:09

I hope that cleared some stuff up for you guys about SEO and keywords and maybe helped you guys determine how to find your keywords, because that really is a question that I get asked a lot. So hope this was helpful. Hope you guys are starting the year off also helpful. Yeah, um, and if you wouldn't mind, we would love since you made it to the end of the episode, we would love it if you rate and reviewed.

Speaker 2: 32:36

The podcast really helps us out. Maybe share it with your friends. You can follow us on Instagram at social sessions podcast. We keep you updated over there. One of my goals for this year is actually to make more like social sessions, specific content, because right now it's usually just clips of the episode, but I think it would be fun to make more, more individualized content over there so you can follow us over there. I'm going to start showing up on stories more often over there so we can chat. You guys can tell me what you want to hear about, I'll answer your questions, whatever, and we'll talk to you guys next week. Talk next week.