There are lots of similarities in the techniques used to optimise for social media and search engine optimisation. The kind of cross-referencing that has come from blending SEO techniques into social media marketing and optimisation has been of great benefit to both sides. Still, there are a lot of areas in which social media optimisation loses out.

Partly, this is because of a certain tension between what works for search engine optimisation and what works for social media. Some social media optimisers avoid SEO because it might put social media users off. This means that social media is not being used to its best advantage. A good social media campaign should bring traffic in for itself and also support your search engine traffic.

There is a little confusion about what social media optimisation and social media marketing is. Social media marketing is usually the term used for off-site campaigns within social media networks, while social media optimisation can mean the specific optimisation for social media on your own website. For the purpose of this article, the term social media optimisation will be used for simplicity’s sake, even though the techniques discussed can be applied to both on-site and off-site social media campaigns.

One area in which many social media campaigns fall down is bad use of title tags. In SEO, the title tag is an ideal place to feature keywords. Your SEO title tag should focus on highly relevant keywords, strategically placing your favourite search terms right at the top of the content.

Title tags for social media, however, generally need to be compelling, evocative and catchy. They need to be the hook that draws users’ attention to the full content. On some social bookmarking sites, users will only read the title of a piece of content before voting on it in social media. If your title tag is catchy enough, it can spread far further than the actual content would usually take it.

This naturally creates a problem. If the title tag is the main thing that will make your social media content travel, you naturally want your keywords to go with it. At the same time, there’s always the thought that your keywords could dilute the catchiness of the title and it won’t travel very far. Decisions, decisions.

For example, say you had a news story about the development of a new medical scanner. A search engine optimised title could be ‘Cyberheart releases electrocardiogram heart disease solution’. A better social media title, however, would be ‘Breakthrough machine spots heart issues three months sooner’

A solution to this problem can be to write the social media tag, and then squeeze a few keywords in. For the above example, this could mean changing ‘issues’ for ‘disease’, and possibly adding ‘Cyberheart’. You could post it with the SEO title and add a more exciting subtitle, or vice versa. Another solution would be to release the content under the social media title for a few weeks, and then replace the title once the excitement dies down.

The creation of a good title takes thought, regardless of whether it is part of your site’s content or social media content, and you can talk to us at SEO Consult for advice. Some of the things that make a good title include numbers, names, punchy adjectives and specific information. Your titles need to attract attention no matter where they are.

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