How to Leverage Social Media Keyword Tracking for Intelligent Content Marketing

Once upon a time, keyword tracking was the king of search engine optimization strategies.

Recently, social media keyword tracking has also become an important aspect of targeting audiences on social media networks.

This makes the accuracy of social media keyword tracking an important facet of optimizing your social media strategy.

The marketing-advertising age demographic sweet spot is between the ages of 18 and 34. This is also the group far more likely to use social media.

This age group uses social media frequently as a medium for opinion and discussion about their current purchasing habits.

Accordingly, social media keyword tracking is a technique everyone looking to benefit from social media marketing needs to master.

Seven Valuable Insights of Keyword Trackers

In social media, you can discover data through searching for specific word combinations.

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Combinations can also include #hashtags on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Tracking keywords on social media can help with answering some important questions:

1. How often the keywords (e.g., your brand name) are mentioned on social media?
2. How many impressions result from mentions of the keywords (e.g., your campaign #hashtags)?
3. What are the demographics (e.g., age, gender, location) of users who mention the keyword?
4. Who publishes popular content that mentions the keywords?
5. What is the most popular published content mentioning the keywords?
6. What is the context in which the keywords are mentioned?
7. Who are the influential users who frequently mention the keyword on social media?

Social media keyword tracking can also help you gather valuable information about users with an interest in your niche.

Being familiar with the broader context of search engine keyword searching makes social media keyword tracking concept much easier.

By using this method, you can narrow down and listen, and broadcast, to the social media audience that is far more likely to have an interest in what you are promoting.

Why Is It Important to Know Keyword Tracking on Social Media

Just how important is this keyword tracking?

To begin, remember that your social media strategy is not just an issue of discovering the right keywords.

Keyword tracking is a cornerstone is designing your social media strategy.

Monitoring your campaign’s keywords can help you increase the number of positive mentions.

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It can also allow a quicker way for people on social media to connect with you. Tracking their mentions of the relevant keywords will provide you with the opportunity to connect with them in a timely manner.

Within the social media context, tracking will allow you to customize your marketing messages. You can tailor it to a specific audience. It will save you money and time when trying to reach your target audience.

It also opens the door for immediate engagement with them.

How to Track Keywords in Social Media

Twitter clients such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to perform multiple keyword searches.

This will quickly narrow down the list of the most important keywords.

The real time activity these tools track is important for the accuracy and currency of your data.

On Twtrland you can perform social media keyword tracking over time. The chart below is a result of keyword tracking after a major event #Snowmageddon2015:

Using it will allow you to mine the most popular keyword queries for the site. Once you discover these terms, you can incorporate them into your content.

Don’t Track the Wrong Keywords

Now that you know what you are tracking and its importance, the next step is to give you some ideas on how to perform keywords tracking.

Practically, you could track any word or word combination with keyword tracking tools.

To make this process more efficient, the best practice for keyword monitoring should include, but not be limited to:

1. Brand name
2. Main products or services
3. Top executive names
4. Popular industry keywords
5. Name of your competitors
6. Relevant hashtags
7. Major events

The idea behind gathering the data is to find out what keyword or combination of keywords will bring you the best results.

Be sure to take notes.

Tracking keywords can help with opening lines of communication on social media to get your message out to your audience.

There is a difference between smart searching and accurate searching.

An accurate set of data may not present the smartest route to take to maximize communication with your target audience. What makes the difference is connecting your marketing goals with the resultant keywords.

Improve Your Online Strategy with Keyword Tracking

Your first goal in combining your social media results with content marketing is to match the products with the keywords, revealing what is the most popular or talked about keyboard.

What is actually happening with the keyword tracking process is the gathering of intelligence you can use to advance your own strategy, or to thwart the plans of the competition.

Here is an example:

Consumers are looking for content and want the information to be right to the point.

Expand your results and make them inclusive for your entire marketing strategy. If there is negative chatter about a competitor’s product, you can take advantage by either creating a stronger presence for your own, or expanding your product line to meet the demand of your target audience.

When engaging your audience through social media, be sure your communication is clear and concise.

Keep your marketing mix in mind by grouping similar keywords that will bolster your content.

The goal is to limit the number of keywords you will include in your content strategy. Less than five is a recommended number.

For a single piece of content, whether it is a blog or an article, the number should be one.

If you exceed these recommendations, it is likely you will confuse the audience, or present an unclear message about the product.

Here is where smart contrasts with accurate.

The use of the resultant keywords in the title and content of the target audience message need to be decided by people.

The tools can generate accurate data, but the communication in the social media arena is between people. That means both approaches are essential, and they depend upon each other.

Depending on several factors such as the size of the product line, the industry the company is engaged in, and its presence in social media, the number of keywords you can potentially generate is enormous. People need to whittle down the results to a manageable number and proceed accordingly.

A great deal of attention should be paid to this final step in the process because it will bring focus to the message directed at the audience and simplify the social media strategy.

This is Just the Beginning to Your Success

The basics of what social media keyword tracking is, its importance, and some best practices have been discussed.

What has been laid is a foundation to build upon for success.

One of the most important aspects of the process to remember is that the search criteria, results, and analysis are all unique to a company.

Therefore, it is best to research the tools and processes that work best for your particular situation.

From a broader perspective, you may discover that a competitor is using inferior tools and processes that allow you have the opportunity to take advantage.

Those who are new to this type of keyword tracking need to realize the difference between the traditional search engine keyword process and social media is a small mistake is likely to have a far greater impact on the company’s social media presence and brand.

Communication is critical, but it must be of the well-organized and thought-out variety to make a positive impact in the world of social media.

Wondering how to measure your social media performance and increase your ROI with smarter usage of social media? Check out Twtrland 14-day free trial of social intelligence that helps you stay ahead.