Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series focused on optimizing SEO and websites to help floral businesses get more sales. Check out this collection of resources on the Floral Education Hub for more digital strategy guidance. 

Since its inception, social media has been a blessing and a curse for business owners. It provides free marketing, but there are so many platforms that it’s tough to know which to use and how.  

We talked to industry experts and social savvy professionals about how using social media with intention can give marketing a boost and improve website search engine ranking.  

Choose Platforms Carefully 

“You have to be very thoughtful in how you resource your socials,” says Renato Cruz Sogueco, AAF, PFCI, vice president of digital strategy and education at BloomNet. “Some florists make the mistake thinking they need to be on all of them. It is possible, but you’re going to run yourself ragged.” 

He suggests assessing your business and customer base. Determine which platforms your customers are using and focus your efforts there. If you’re trying to grow your business or reach a new market segment, branch out to additional platforms. For example, Eileen Weber, AAF, vice president of Lake Forest Flowers in Lake Forest, Illinois, spends most of her social media energy on Facebook because that’s where her current customers are. But she’s also looking into TikTok, whose users skew younger, because that’s where her future customers are. 

Post Consistently and Intentionally 

Wherever you choose to spend your social media energy, treat your business’s page like a high-maintenance fiddle leaf fig, not a carefree succulent. Consistently create quality content, engage with your audience, and lead them back to your website. 

“You always do what’s good for the user. Don’t go out and try to create content just to create content,” says Liza Roeser, AAF, founder and CEO of Fifty Flowers, which has found great success on Pinterest. “Showing up poorly is worse than not showing up at all.” 

If Google crawls your social media page and doesn’t see anything new, it thinks you’re irrelevant, says Roeser. Get Google’s attention by keeping your page as fresh as your flower selection. Provide links to your social media pages on your Google Business Profile and Google will display recent posts alongside your business information in organic search results. 

You can use your socials to further boost your SEO by including direct links to your business’s website on all of your social media channels, says Nicole Donnelly, founder of AI Smart Marketing. If the platform allows it, include backlinks on individual posts. When websites are mentioned on other pages, they appear more credible to search engines, Donnelly says. 

Tap Into YouTube 

Jet Fresh Flower Distributors in Miami devotes a lot of its social media energy to YouTube. Mimi Martinez-Pacheco, marketing and communications specialist, says videos provide the best format for the wholesaler because it allows them to showcase products. Jet Fresh posts a variety of videos, including longform podcasts and short product promotions. 

Google owns YouTube, providing a potential boost for overall SEO, says Martinez-Pacheco. “If we have a video with good views, it shows up on the Google search,” she says. YouTube and Google can’t promote your video if they don’t know what it’s about, so writing detailed video descriptions and relevant titles is key, says Martinez-Pacheco. 

YouTube frequently tweaks its algorithm to try to provide users with a better experience. Because the website has been flooded with junk content from content creators, YouTube only actively promotes one video per creator at a time, Donnelly says. She recommends spacing out your YouTube posts to one per week for maximum exposure. 

Keep Facebook Fresh 

Weber posts to her shop’s Facebook page almost every day. She includes a variety of posts — both images and videos — showcasing bouquets and event flowers, educating customers, and promoting events and special pricing. She also tags clients, event venues, and related business owners — like the wedding photographer and deejay — to reach a broader audience. 

Weber’s regularity and reach helps push her business into more users’ feeds. Facebook has updated its algorithms over the years due, in part, to the platform’s popularity. Users frequently like and follow businesses, but they rarely unfollow them. Add hundreds or thousands of friends to the mix, and users would have to scroll for hours every day to see everything from everyone they’ve friended or followed. Facebook now limits user feeds to content it thinks will be relevant. 

“Facebook only lets through about 10% of the posts because there’s just too many posts,” says Dan McManus, founder and president of TeamFloral, a floral marketing consultancy that specializes in SEO. “If you have 600 followers and you make a post, it’s going to appear in 60 people’s feeds.” 

While the post may not end up in every feed, post frequency could give businesses a boost in search engine results. Google crawls every website to which it has access. Public pages on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) all are accessible to Google’s crawler. Finding active, relevant content across different websites adds to a business’s implied authority and improves its SEO.  

Looking for more SEO guidance? Read “A New Rx for Your SEO” in the July/August issue of Floral Management.  

Laurie Herrera is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.