Do the SEO tactics we use on Google also work on social media? In this article, Hootsuite inbound marketing strategist Liz Stanton tries to find out.
Have you ever discovered a new brand through Instagram’s Explore page? Are you turning to TikTok to find out why your plant is dying? Let’s say you are approx 40% of Generation Z. In this case, use social media instead of Google to find product reviews, discover how to perform specific tasks, and learn more about your favorite topics.
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And if you’re like about 100% of social media managers, you’re struggling to figure out the best way to optimize your social content so that those search engines find your posts instead of your competition’s.
But what’s the best way to ensure that social platforms’ algorithms easily understand your content? If we know how search works on platforms like Google, can we apply these insights to TikTok and Instagram?
In a recent experimentHootsuite’s blog editorial team paired up with our social team to put these questions to the test.
Our hypothesis was simple: using traditional search engine optimization (SEO) tactics when creating social content can help your posts get more reach (meaning more people see them) . Let’s dive into the findings.
Traditional SEO vs Social SEO
In traditional SEO, content strategists target specific keywords and create content that matches search intent (aka what someone is searching for). It’s about giving the algorithms that control Google’s search results as much context as possible so that your content is closer to the top of the list.
At Hootsuite, we like to think we’re pretty good at optimizing content for Google. We have hundreds of them high ranking blog posts which attract millions of visitors to our site every month.
In theory, social SEO works just like traditional SEO. You create content that answers specific questions and makes it easy for social algorithms (for our experiment, specifically the Instagram and TikTok algorithms) to serve that content to the right audience.
But no one knows exactly how social SEO works yet.
Methodology
While traditional SEO is well established and has tons of tools that make it easy to research keywords and track performance, social SEO is a whole new game, so we had to be a little cheeky
Instead of relying on our favorite SEO tools (shout out to SEMrush and Keyword Planner), we used the platforms’ robust search and autocomplete features to create keyword groups and plan content that matches our marketing expertise social
Once we settled on our target keywords, we worked with our friends on the social team to create five “search-optimized” videos for Instagram and TikTok.
Instagram alt text is your secret social SEO weapon #alttext #instagram tips #instagramseo
For each video, we made sure to include our keywords in three places: in the caption, as text on the screen, and in the script at least once.
We then posted our videos on both TikTok and Instagram, using Hootsuite’s best time to post feature to make sure they’re out at the right time. We gave each video four weeks to collect views before analyzing our results.
Oh, and a side note: in a perfect world, we’d compare our results to a non-optimized control group. But this approach would create duplicate content and a repetitive experience for our audience. This would obviously skew the results and drag down the social performance of our other videos.
To avoid this, we randomly selected standard content from each channel to use as a control group. The content in this group did not use any of the social SEO tactics mentioned above.
Measure success
If you’re not already researching yours social analysis you miss out on a lot of valuable information on a regular basis.
TikTok and Instagram analytics let you track who is watching your videos, where they found your content, how many viewers decided to engage, and more.
For TikTok, we used For You page views as our key success metric. We felt that a successfully optimized video would be more likely to appeal to a wider audience and appear on more FYPs.
For Instagram, we looked at non-follower views for the same reason. After all, the goal of SEO is to serve our content to people who don’t know us yet but are interested in our niche.
Final results
Our experiment made one thing VERY clear: using social SEO to optimize your content can help you increase both reach and engagement on TikTok and Instagram.
Tik Tok
On TikTok, our optimized videos got 33% more views from new people to our account (aka FYP). They also had a slightly higher average participation rate, going from 4.59% to 4.75%. This could be in part because these videos covered topics that people were already searching for and were naturally more likely to engage with.
Our SEO-optimized TikToks also got 39% more unique views compared to our control group.
The most important thing about TikTok: Keyword optimization can get you 40% more views, including 33% more FYP views.
Our Instagram results were a little more mixed.
Unfortunately, the best performing Instagram videos in our experiment were accidentally boosted, so our organic results were lost. (But we were comforted to know that these posts were automatically boosted because of how well they performed. If you’re not trying to run an experiment, Hootsuite’s handy automated boost setup they are a lifesaver!)
The accidental boost skewed our calculations (we’ve labeled the skewed numbers with an asterisk*), but we noticed that fewer non-followers than the control saw our SEO-optimized content.
However, our SEO-optimized Instagram videos still had more total and average interactions. Optimized videos got 25% more total engagement and a higher average engagement rate (4.0%, up from 3.1%).
Due to our boosted post mishap, we can’t say with 100% certainty that Instagram reacts as positively as TikTok. But we hope to run this experiment again soon to confirm this intuition.
For now, we’ll just say that using traditional SEO tactics for your TikTok content can lead to more reach among non-followers, as well as more engagement. And using traditional SEO tactics with your Instagram content can result in more engagement (and maybe more reach).
Biggest Instagram Takeaway: By Optimizing Your Keywords, You May See a ~33% Increase in Engagement Rates
The best takeaways
Curious about incorporating social SEO into your own social strategy? Here are a few tips to help you get started:
Do your keyword research. SEO professionals usually do keyword research once a quarter, but social media moves fast. We recommend doing keyword research on TikTok and Instagram at least once a month, but combine this with your own content planning cadence. Review the content already appearing for your chosen keywords. Take note of the best performers; this will tell you what people are searching for when they search for those keywords. Watch these videos, find out what’s missing, and make a plan for how you can do better. Use keywords wisely. There are three great places to insert keywords in social videos: in the screen text, in the captions, and in the script. YouTube, TikTok and other social video platforms first crawl your transcripts to understand what your video is about. They’re looking for keywords that help categorize your content, so make their job easier (and help your content perform better) and say it out loud. Optimize the right content. Some content works better for keyword optimization, such as your educational videos. Don’t try to stuff keywords into trending content. SEO should not be your only focus. SEO keywords should complement your existing social strategy, not replace it. Don’t overlook a relevant trend because it doesn’t align with your keyword goals.
Liz Stanton is an inbound marketing strategist and associate editor of the Hootsuite blog. Before joining Hootsuite in 2022, Liz worked as a brand strategist, content editor and digital campaign manager. When she’s not working on new content for the Hootsuite blog, you’ll find her scrolling through Instagram and TikTok in search of the latest social media trends.
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