4 Ingenious Link Building Strategies on Social Media

July 18, 2023 | Social Media

The role of social media marketing in link building isn’t so obvious. Some marketers are skeptical about social signals affecting their rankings. Some segregate their social media marketing and link building with different methods and objectives. But as it recently turned out, these people seem to be a minority.

There are many blog posts which highlight the ineffectiveness of link building on social media. Yet, they seem irrelevant now based on a new study on how SEO experts do link building.

The results showed that a majority of experts use social media primarily for link building and here are the findings:

  1. 88% of SEOs include links in social profiles
  2. 81% share their social media content
  3. 53% experiment with viral campaigns like social media contests

Here’s a chart explaining the efficiency level based on the category by SEO Power Suite.

4 ingenious link building strategies on social media

This fact is, however, overseen by most specialists and if you’re one of them, this post is for you.

Include Links To Your Social Profiles

Many people are of the notion that social media for SEO is pointless for a simple reason that links from social media are unfollowed. Even YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn and Google+-avenues that were once exceptions to this rule-have now joined the bandwagon.

Reddit is the only exception here, but marketing on the platform is a herculean task. If you want to market your product on Reddit, it has to be extremely valuable to the sub-community, especially for link building to work. And if you post crappy content and try to rant about your product on Reddit, you’ll face the risk of being banned.

That said, you just can’t ignore link building on social media because it’s no follow. What about the social signals? What about the traffic that emanates from the links in a user’s news feed.

SEO specialist and affiliate marketer, Matthew Woodward shares some tremendous insights on building backlinks from social media in his tutorial.

On Facebook, for instance, Woodward suggests the following:

  1. Add your website link to Contact
  2. Add your website link anytime you post something on your timeline including pictures and videos
  3. Pin your website link on to your group.

The same is applicable to your other social media business pages. Include links to images, descriptions, cover photos etc. There’s no harm in doing so, but there is a huge potential for traffic.

Make Your Content Stand Out

One of the main challenges of social media marketing is getting your content seen. With businesses posting on their social channels frequently, you should go the extra mile to make your content easily visible.

Here are some essential tactics.

Make Your Posts Easily Readable

This goes without saying, but there are many who don’t have the knack of writing well. Remember to keep your content engaging, concise and free from errors, especially if you want to be noticed.

Research Your Competitors

Spend time studying your competitors’ pages as you can find ample opportunities for content promotion. Try looking at industries related to your niche and not always your direct competitors.

Create Evergreen Content

Creating evergreen content should be your ultimate objective, especially if you want people to link to the post in the long run. For instance, a blog post on “Holiday marketing ideas” can attract new traffic every Christmas and Halloween.

Translate Your Existing Content

Now, this is again something that’s ignored by many people. If you want to get more exposure and more backlinks, translate your existing content.

Submit To Content Communities And Niche News Site

Every industry may not have a content community or niche news site, but most of them do. In digital marketing, for instance, there’s BizSugar.com, Inbound.org, and GrowthHackers.com. And there’s Triberr.com that contains posts on almost anything. Try finding similar websites related to your industry.

One powerful platform to share your posts is Viral Content Bee. On this platform, other users share your content on social media provided you do the same. Just remain active and keep on sharing.

Submit To Social Network Communities

Social network communities are of prime importance, especially for link building. There are LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Groups, Google+ Communities, and Subreddits. On these communities, engage with members by reading and writing valuable comments on their posts. Try answering their questions and they may end up borrowing your kick-ass content and linking back to you.

Learn To Craft Viral Content

Creating viral content is the hardest but quickest way to earn backlinks. Take the example of Brian Dean from Backlinko. Till date, he has published less than 30 articles but shared by thousands of readers worldwide.

While some content may go viral by chance, many are created by experienced marketers who have the dexterity of viral marketing.

React Fast

Nicholas Tran, Senior Director of marketing at Samsung Electronics America, states that if you want to succeed in social media today, you have to respond in real time.

Life never comes to a standstill on social media. Users keep reading, reacting, commenting and sharing. The key is to stoke a conversation that will attract more eyeballs and then actively engage.

For instance, Oreo’s tweet “You Can Still Dunk In The Dark” went crazy.

4 Ingenious Link Building Strategies on Social Media

The lights went off during the showdown between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. Oreoz seized this opportunity and tweeted about it during the 34-minute hiatus.

Viewers loved the message which was retweeted over 14,000 times at the time of writing this post. It went viral and built tons of discussion, links, and traffic.

A key takeaway here for brands is to check what’s trending and avoid sensitive trends that can lead to risks.

Another example is the heartwarming story of Mexican bakers, who were supporting the flood victims after Hurricane Harvey. This was shared by Independent soon after the incident. It was widely shared by Facebook users and gathered more than 2.4 million engagements, according to Buzzsumo.

4 Ingenious Link Building Strategies on Social Media
                                                       Image Source

Be Creative

This is an area which is easier said than done. You can never imagine going viral by copying others-creating content that others are creating, even if it’s deeper, better or more vibrant.

You need to stand out from the rest to go viral.

An easy way to do this is to spy on your competitors and do exactly the opposite. Of course, it takes tremendous effort and brainstorming, but you’ll be rewarded in the long run.

For example, when American fast food restaurant, Taco Bell decided to promote their new app, they were sure that making loads of noise on social media would not attract the attention of users. So they deleted all their pages and left a single but effective message.

4 ingenious link building strategies on social media


                                                            Image Source

This post went viral and earned the company a huge amount of traffic and links. Very soon, the app became the most downloaded in the App Store in the “food and drink” category.

Conclusion

Link building on social media is powerful and real. While there’s no excuse for not applying some of the tactics mentioned above (including links in your social profiles), you can stay ahead by creating viral content. The latter can also boost your rankings.

Try most strategies and tactics mentioned here, and find out what works best for you.

Share Your Thoughts

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Read more articles

Want to stay on top of the latest search trends?

Get top insights and news from our search experts.

Loading

Try Rankwatch Today For FREE !

Start Your FREE 14 Days Trial

25,000+ Active customers in 25 countries use RankWatch as their primary SEO software