Can social media marketing support your backlinking strategy?

As we turn our attention to artificial intelligence and ask ourselves the question, “How is AI impacting digital marketing?”, it’s easy to get lost in the vortex that is this tremendously rapid advancement of technology. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, a business that doesn’t adopt AI best practices quickly is highly likely to get left behind. How does this impact social media marketing, though?

While AI is an area that needs a lot of attention, and rightly so, there is a growing opportunity for business owners and those responsible for marketing to make sure that the fundamentals of their digital marketing strategy remain in place. What do we mean by this?

As the world pivots to weaving AI into all facets of business, many companies do so at the cost of drawing attention away from core components of digital strategy, like link building and social media marketing. Therein lies an opportunity for the savvy. Keeping these areas of digital marketing continue running and evolving as they should may just give you the competitive edge.

To help you stay on track, in this article, we take a closer look at how social media and link building intersect and why a well-rounded strategy can sharpen your SEO efforts.

What Is Link Building?

So, what exactly is link building (also called backlinking), and why is it important?

Going back to traditional marketing, where physical location was everything, think of it as signage in and around a business that informs people that it exists and points them in the right direction so that they can find it.

In the digital space, it’s more or less the same — especially for Google. As the digital road that we travel on to get somewhere, Google favors a good link-building strategy and will prioritize a website that follows best practices. What we mean by this is that when a good link-building strategy is followed, your chances of your web pages ranking for specific search terms on Google increase. This is important for any effective SEO strategy.

It’s all about relevance, authority, and diversity, as not all links are created equal. At its core, link building involves:

• Relevance: The links directing traffic to your website must be relevant, in that they come from sources that align with what you’re speaking to/about and your business.
• Authority: You’ll want to get backlinks on websites with high authority. Think news platforms, local government sites, or well-established and popular channels.
• Diversity: This is something that a lot of businesses forget about. A good link-building strategy is also about making sure that your backlinks include a mix of sources — blogs, directories, publications, and social shares.

Why Social Media Matters For Link Building

Okay, so you understand that link building is still important, but how can social media help with that specific strategy?

It’s sometimes forgotten that social media is still an important element of SEO, even if platforms like Facebook and Instagram are typically “nofollow” (meaning they don’t pass direct SEO value). What’s important to understand is that the role of social media in link building is not about the raw link juice but more about the exposure, distribution, and credibility.

Even though social media backlinks may carry less direct SEO value, they are an important part of having a healthy backlink profile, and at the end of the day, they still contribute to a website’s long-term growth and authority.

The great thing about social media backlinks is that they are incredibly easy to get, unlike most high-ranking websites. As you’re in charge of your content, you can simply add them to your profile, include them in content, or share them with others.

Without getting too technical, here are a few ways that social media links can help your SEO strategy.

Increases Content Visibility

One of the biggest advantages of social media links is that they increase brand visibility. As they are immediate, there is a higher chance of them going viral quickly when you compare them to traditional SEO strategies. The more views your content gets and the more shares, the better the chances of it appearing in front of your potential customers or influencers in your industry.

Then, if other people are sharing your social media links because they’re interesting, relevant, or just worthy of a share, you’ll get more exposure.

Drives Referral Traffic

Social media backlinks don’t just offer exposure – they also funnel highly targeted visitors to your website. When your social content gets more views, you will start to get more visitors on your website. More traffic, in most cases, means more leads.

As these leads have come in from your social platforms, where they have already been exposed to the brand and have shown interest by clicking through, these are pre-qualified leads that will have much more intent than if they landed on your site cold.

Builds Relationships With Influencers

Platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn are great places to engage with influencers and thought leaders in your specific industry. It’s an easy way to interact with them, whether that be through likes, shares, or comments.

As you build these relationships, you’ll be presented with opportunities to share links to relevant articles and potentially even collaborate on content together. When you do, you may get high-value backlinks that improve your site’s domain authority.

Your Content Will Index Faster

When your content is actively shared on social media platforms like those we’ve listed above, search engines will discover it as they are crawled. What this means is that your articles or posts will index with the search engines, making them appear in search results sooner. This gives your SEO efforts a solid boost.

To help answer a few questions that we receive often, here is a quick FAQ.

Q: Is it risky to automate a social media backlink strategy?

A: The answer here isn’t a clear yes or no, but there’s a reason why. Automation tools can definitely increase the speed at which you can post, but this comes at a risk of overusing links and them being seen as spam. It may trigger restrictions on your account if you go overboard. We advise a balance between automation and authentic, personalized engagement.

Q: Should I rely only on social media backlinks for SEO?

A: We strongly advise against this. Social media links will definitely work towards improving your SEO efforts, but you can’t use them in isolation. They should form part of a broader SEO strategy. It’s like trying to run a car with the engine alone — you need several parts to work together to get it moving.

Q: Can deleting old social posts hurt my backlink efforts?

A: Yes, it can. When you remove posts that include links to your website, it can lead to lost referral traffic and reduce the number of external paths for people. It’s better to either archive or update than simply delete.

Q: Is it possible to measure the indirect impact of social media backlinks?

A: While most SEO tools don’t track “nofollow” links, you can still monitor referral traffic through Google Analytics. You’ll want to look out for spikes in branded searches and track whether viral social posts lead to a rise in editorial backlinks from outside sources. It’s all about looking at the data with the right lens.