Birmingham and Essex Social Media Optimization

Should you write Optimisation or Optimization?

As a Brit, I really hate seeing those rogue 'Z's Americanising our beautiful language. However, when it's a technical term in a very specific field, sometimes you have to cover both versions of the word if you want to reach all the people who might want to know about the subject.

So, whilst I would prefer to spell it Optimisation, I sometimes have to write a post about Birmingham or Essex Social Media Optimization to appeal to those who are influenced by our American cousins and to keep the Google spiders and bots happy. There are places by the name of Birmingham and Essex in both England and the United States so folks in those towns will want to see it spelt the way that they recognise - whichever side of the Atlantic their town lies.

Basically, if you want to be ranked on the search engine results pages for a particular word, you have to include that word in the body of your website, as well as flagging it as a keyword in the meta data. So, I have to work with both spellings of the word and make it location specific.

But that's the optimisation of search engines, so what exactly is the optimization of social media?

I guess, to cut a long story short, it's all about making sure that every social media platform on which you or your company has a presence conforms to the same look and feel. So your profiles on Linked In, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr -- and any others that may better represent your customer base -- should have the same logo and colour scheme.

However, it's more than that, because it involves making sure that every aspect of all the possible social media tools are flagging up your brand to the search engine bots.

In words of one syllable, it's using all the tools in your arsenal when it comes to keywords. Making sure that your Facebook Page Vanity url or at least your Facebook Page's Title includes the keyword that is most relevant to your company -- keeping the Google bots happy and also letting your Facebook readers know what you are about.

It means keeping abreast of all the latest developments in Mobile Marketing too -- so, at the very least, making sure that your website is accessible by Smartphone. The best content management systems can detect whether they are being accessed by a mobile phone or a PC and give them the appropriate website design. Suitable for thumbs not mice and with prioritised content so they are not inundated with words.

The Smart phone has become the playground of the social media savvy customer. They can research the product they want to buy, source the closest stores and then check out the competitiveness of the prices -- whenever, wherever and all in the space of a few seconds... from the palm of their hand.

That's why it's vital to optimize for mobile social media too. Your business needs to have a Places Page for people to Check In to on Facebook and an entry on Google Mobile and Foursquare where (hopefully) satisfied customers can leave reviews that will be shared with their friends. Statistics show that positive feedback from friends is more likely to influence a purchase.

Google's shfit of emphasis to Local and Content-driven weighting mean that Social Media Optimization is crucial to achieving the best ranking on the search engine results pages.


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Social Media Optimization is a very precise science that also involves local seo and mobile website design. For more information about Birmingham, London, Kent or Essex Social Media Optimization