There’s a lot of debate regarding the use of various digital marketing strategies: should they be taken separately, or can they be joined for a more effective campaign? If so, where does the intersection lie?

Content marketing and social media marketing are two of the new marketing techniques pushed into the limelight following several Google algorithm updates that attached importance to social media signals and high quality, relevant content. Many brands are still approaching digital marketing as though it were a collection of separate techniques where one is more important than the other.

On the contrary, all techniques flow into each other. Content marketing is just content without SEO or social media marketing to place it in front of the right eyes. On the other hand, you will have little to share, tweet or otherwise post on social media, or make it to organic SERPs, if you don’t invest in creating high quality and relevant content.

Valuable content is what drives audience engagement, social shares, comments, backlinks and other forms of online conversation. Hence, content must be the very foundation of any social media marketing strategy if it is going to succeed. To know more about fool proof marketing strategy visit site – http://www.rankingbyseo.com/.

That being said, unlike conventional content marketing, which has its basis in business objectives, content created for social media marketing has very specific purposes. For maximum efficacy, this content should be created in a scheme that fits into the requirements of different platforms as well as to promote a specific message being transmitted by a business/brand.

In addition, such content should be written in such a way as to initiate user contribution through discussions and open dialogue, because that’s what social media is all about. Below are three tips to help you merge content and social media marketing for a strong and effective campaign:

1.      A/B Testing

It’s hardly effective to pick a topic at random, create content, publish on your social profiles and hope for the best. What’s more effective is to test different messages and content ideas through your different social media platforms to determine which elicits the greatest response from your audience.

If you put out a piece of content and it doesn’t generate the kind of response you expected, you would still not know why. A/B testing on the other hand offers the kind of insight necessary to determine how you can interact with particular audiences effectively.

2.      Content optimization

Different optimization techniques should be selected depending on the social platform and target audience. All social networks are unique, and ignoring their distinction from each other when creating content is setting up a failing content marketing campaign.

By optimizing for specific networks and audiences, you maximize your chances of getting your content before your audience. For instance, in Twitter, you have to limit your communication to 140 characters, which means your message should be powerful but concise. With Facebook, you should include images or video content to stand out on followers’ newsfeeds.

3.      Audience involvement

You can engage with your audience to find out what kind of content they find interesting, as well as topics that engage them. There are tools online that can help you with this process, like Nexalogy, which creates a map showing topics discussed by followers and/or fans. This will help you create content that will pull audiences and attract the greatest response from your audience.

All you need is careful planning, and a little intuition, and your content marketing and social marketing campaigns can be merged into a force to be reckoned with.

Bio: Lalit Sharma is an SEO consultant who runs a SEO house called Ranking By SEO. He is specialized in link building and other SEO related activities. You can also find him on Twitter, Google+ and his personal site.