Hey guys, what’s up? You probably already know that keywords are the basis of any content strategy. Let’s find out more about how to use keywords for social networks.
Nowadays, users can find information from a variety of sources. That’s why it’s important that you consider strategies that will increase the connection between you and your audience.
In this article, we’ll explain in detail how keyword research on social networks works and how you can use it to increase your results!
What are keywords? What are they for?
Keywords are specific terms, which can be a single word or a phrase. They are essential in organic or paid search.
In this way, search marketing is in charge of refining research and analysis methods that return the best keywords for a specific niche or content.
Its use is very common among SEO professionals who write blog articles – like this one. However, conducting and implementing keyword research is also highly effective for social media marketing.
Keywords for interacting on social networks
On social networks, keywords are used to interact with your audience more effectively. They help classify your content so that it can be found by people interested in the topics you cover.
For example, on Instagram, relevant keywords in captions and hashtags can increase the visibility of your posts.
Why use it?
By using keyword research, you can understand a lot about your audience’s behavior and map aspects such as: behavior, language, tone of voice, doubts and desires.
With these results, you can create new content, work on specific terms in hashtags and aggregate various publications into a single strategic front.
If you’re curious about how keywords work in social media posts, I’ll explain.
They are included in various ways, such as hashtags, captions, bios, and even comments. These are indexing factors for social networks and can increase the effectiveness of content distribution.
So whenever the user searches for a time, the algorithm will show related results.
The hashtags appear like this on an Instagram post:
Keyword research will help you:
- Understand trends and focus on certain subjects at specific times;
- Measure your audience’s interest in certain products or services;
- Understand user intent and build effective campaigns;
- Follow popular topics (trend topics);
- Identify demands by keyword;
- Increase engagement on your channels;
- Improve the visibility of posts.
By using this strategy, you can be clearer about how to set guidelines and strategies for your brand, communicating a message that is more aligned with the audience you want to connect with.
How to research keywords for social networks?
Contrary to what many people think, keyword research is not the same for all platforms. There are very significant differences, which include:
Search by terms
The most popular queries on Google are not the most popular on YouTube, Instagram or Facebook.
As an example, the query “YouTube” is very popular on Google, as many people expect to land on the YouTube homepage.
However, it wouldn’t make sense to search for the same term on another network or on YouTube itself.
Behavioral differences between users
Each channel has its own objective and this is reflected in user behavior. Each search and interaction has a different type of purpose.
On Google, people are looking for informative topics, to solve doubts and find tutorials, for example. On Instagram, on the other hand, there is a greater interest in cultivating relationships and interacting with people and brands.
Consultation or conversation
Social engagement is more than just entering a query into a search engine.
Researchers are looking for an answer to a question or an unmet need, while social media users want to chat, share ideas and interact with each other.
Therefore, thinking only in terms of keyword sequences is limited and can lead to a completely wrong understanding of the user’s intentions and expectations.
Keyword search tools
There are many tools and websites that search for keywords on social networks. Most of them are free or have a free version for you to explore and assess whether it’s worth hiring.
Here are some examples:
- Hashtagfy;
- SEMRush;
- Keyword Tool;
- Google Trends;
- AnswerThePublic;
- Google’s Keyword Planner;
- Internal searches by the networks themselves.
Examples of keywords for social networks
Some examples of keywords for social networks include:
- For a cooking blog: #EasyRecipes, #HealthyFood
- For a fashion e-commerce: #SustainableFashion, #FashionTrends
- For an SEO consultant: #DicasDeSEO, #MarketingDigital
How to use keywords for social networks?
Once you’ve found a range of keywords that make sense for your niche and the contexts of your post, how do you know how best to use them strategically?
Classify the keywords
You can use criteria such as relevance, search volume and competition. In other words, you should choose words that have a high, medium and low search volume.
This allows your content to be shown to more people. You can also manage the competition between your material and that produced by your competitors.
Identify words related to your brand
Find keywords that are directly related to your brand and your niche market. You can even create your own hashtags with your brand name so that people can find your content more easily.
This helps you connect with a more qualified audience.
Use simple and common terms for your audience
Search for the words that your audience uses the most so that it’s easier to find related topics. So avoid using very technical terms if they don’t make sense to your audience.
Include keywords in post captions
The more natural the insertion of key terms in the captions, the better. Try to create texts that make sense within the context of the brand.
This will bring even more visibility and relevance to the content.
Use keywords in your bio
A bio is a brief description, so you need to be very assertive in this regard. Choose the most relevant keywords so that people can easily identify what your business or profile is about.
Keyword research for different social media platforms
Now that we’ve had an overview of how to find keywords, what they’re for and how to choose them, let’s delve deeper.
Let’s understand how the logic of using these terms works within each platform according to the behavior of its users.
Keyword research for Instagram
Although Instagram is part of the Meta Group, there are many differences between it and Facebook. Because it is a mostly visual tool, many people believe that keywords will have little relevance, but this is not true.
Instagram relies heavily on the use of hashtags to discover content. This makes it easier for users to find you, and the easier it is to be found, the better!
To understand which terms are interesting for your brand, you can use the app’s own search to find popular hashtags related to your niche.
As Instagram allows you to use several hashtags, you can choose many strategic keywords for each post. However, be careful not to include too many hashtags and damage the browsing experience.
How to search for terms on instagram
There isn’t yet a specific search tool for Instagram terms, so you can use more general search engines, such as those mentioned above.
This will help you organize and plan your campaigns, content and generally understand how users search for your niche and business.
Keyword research for Twitter (current X)
For X (formerly Twitter), there is a specific platform that displays trending topics and keywords. It also offers insights into which terms are performing best.
A favorite of marketing professionals, journalists and many others, the microblog offers an opportunity to follow a wide variety of subjects in real time, such as breaking news and events.
This is also a challenge. The high volume of information produced every hour demands greater refinement in the production of content. For this, the use of hashtags is important in search.
This search functionality is becoming increasingly precise, making it possible to search for any keyword or phrase, regardless of whether people use dedicated hashtags or not.
X’s internal search functionality has also improved a lot in recent years, but it’s far from the only keyword research method at your disposal. You can still search directly in X for specific keywords, hashtags and phrases.
To search for specific terms, use quotation marks in your search to find exact matches for your search term.
Keyword research for Facebook
We’ve reached the world’s largest social network! With more than two billion regular users, Facebook still occupies a unique space in the social networking ecosystem.
The social network offers enormous reach and a highly engaged audience, making it the ideal platform for pay-per-click advertisers, content producers and brands wishing to extend their reach as part of a wider market.
Audience segmentation
One of Facebook’s greatest strengths is its incredibly sophisticated and specific targeting options.
Advertisers and search marketers can target their potential audiences based on hundreds of different criteria, such as:
- hobbies;
- events on the timeline;
- demographic data;
- behavioral patterns;
- broader online interests;
- cross-segmentation by combining data.
Discovering specific terms
Despite all these features, Facebook doesn’t offer a native keyword search tool either. However, it is possible to use Facebook’s audience profile data as a starting point for your keyword research.
Keyword research for YouTube
With more than 300 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute and more than 5 billion unique views a day, YouTube is by far THE online video platform.
In this immensity of content, knowing how to use the right keywords will make all the difference to the efficiency of distributing videos to qualified users.
Discovering specific terms
As a Google property, YouTube has incorporated much of its technology, including search functionality. An excellent way to find new keyword suggestions to target your video content or ads is to use “wildcard” searches.
To do this, enter part of a search term and include an underscore character (“_”) in place of the missing word. YouTube will then offer a series of suggestions, similar to Google’s autocomplete search function.
There are several other third-party keyword suggestion tools developed specifically for YouTube. You can explore and see which one best suits your strategy!
Keyword research for Pinterest
Of all the major social media platforms, Pinterest is undoubtedly the most exclusive.
A digital interpretation of the classic bulletin board, Pinterest is unique because it relies exclusively on content selected by the user – and not just generated by them.
Even so, the use of keywords is an essential part of the strategy!
How to optimize content
On Pinterest, the search bar can be a great resource for discovering keywords that people are looking for.
Another excellent source of potential keywords is Pinterest’s Explore tab, which provides a variety of topic suggestions based on user engagement across the platform, each of which can be explored and refined for even more relevant keyword ideas.
Before you even enter a keyword, Pinterest will display several timely search trends .
Simply enter a keyword and you’ll see several relevant suggestions that you can explore as the basis for a keyword set or ad group. You can also refine your results in real time by selecting a keyword suggestion and repeating the process.
Another option is to use Pinterest’s advertising options as part of your keyword research workflow. To get started, you’ll need to create an account on Pinterest for Business and navigate to the “Promoted Pins” option in the user menu.
From here, you can create and name a new campaign, as well as set a daily budget. At this point, you can enter your initial search query to see a series of suggestions for related keywords that are relevant to your original keyword.
Some may be less useful than others, but even these recommendations can be used as negative keywords if you are planning an advertising campaign.
How to monitor keywords on social networks?
To monitor keywords on social networks, you can use the search tools mentioned above. In addition to observing the metrics, data and performance reports of posts according to the curation of terms carried out previously.
In addition, social media management tools can help in this mission by returning results such as well-positioned hashtags, for example.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, research and strategic use of these terms are key to increasing the visibility and engagement of your content.
Remember that keywords are not just for SEO on blogs and websites, but also play a key role on social networks. By understanding the differences between each platform and how users interact with the content, you can adjust your approach to achieve better results.
Observe the particularities of each social network, classify and choose keywords that are relevant and make sense to your audience. Including these terms in captions, bios, hashtags and even comments can make all the difference in getting your content discovered.
In addition, monitoring keyword performance and adjusting your strategies based on the insights gained is essential to staying competitive and relevant. With dedication and the right tactics, you can turn your social networks into powerful marketing tools.
So get to work! Apply what you’ve learned and see how keywords can boost your content on social networks. See you in the next article 😉
