Drive Traffic to Your Website Using Social Media the Right Way
Find out how to use social media to get shares, clicks and drive traffic to your business website with these tips.
Blogs on your business website play a key role in attracting traffic.
If you want to harness the complete potential of your website content, you should promote your post on social media.
Every successful business knows how to pay the due importance to their content.
Very interestingly, blog traffic doesn’t fizz out after the first share. After the first share, you can share it multiple times on multiple channels to draw in the new audience.
Let’s see what happens to a sample post when we share it a second and a third time through our social media channels –
When we shared our content via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+ on the first day we got around 5, 10 and 4 clicks respectively. On the second day, the numbers changed to 4, 8 and 3 clicks respectively. On the third day when we shared the same content via the same channels, it received 2, 5 and 9 clicks.
This means while the first share got (a total of 5+10+4 =) 19 clicks, the second and third shares got an extra 24 clicks in total.
Each share gets new clicks.
Well, new clicks for the second round of sharing almost always mean increased traffic as well. However, the law of diminishing returns states otherwise. The story is quite different for the third round of shares. The traffic doubles after the third share via the same channels.
This is a very simple example that we have chosen from our experiences.
So how does social media drive traffic to your website?
- If your website has relevant, useful content that interests potential viewers, your social media shares will drive traffic.
- You can ask questions, call for activities and hold surveys to connect with your potential audience directly.
You should curate your feedback, analyze the same and adjust your marketing strategies accordingly to make your website and products more consumer oriented.
- Use brand promotion methods to increase brand recognition. Your brands need to be present in front of potential buyers. Sometimes, your Instagram followers and Facebook fans need a little push in the form of offers, discounts, and incentives. We have seen sharing offers and new products with a “buy button” at the bottom is a wonderful tactic for increasing incoming traffic.
- Look for industry influencers. You need to expand your reach and associate your brand name with the social influencers and industry influencers. They can be celebrities or lauded bloggers in your field of work/business. While it is true, that running a simple Google search may help you find the latest influencers. It is also true that tools like Kred and PeerIndex may not be able to give you an authentic report. Famed.co on the other hand can tell you who your industry influencers and social influencers are.
- Social media provides a wonderful feedback mechanism. You can garner serious feedback from your followers for Instagram, Facebook fans, Twitter followers and other social media audience on your social channels. You can link these feedbacks to your website and products as well.
Amazon does quite a wonderful job of collecting feedback on the website and social media. Have you seen the recent posts from Wendy’s and Pizza Hut? It is commendable how these brands are always active on social media. They make sure that people come in to check their audience responses and conversations.
- Although Google says that social media does not affect your SEO. We know that isn’t completely true. Outbound links affect your SEO and so do customer reviews on your website. If you manage to harness the power of social media for these purposes, be sure that your SEO score will definitely improve.
- When you keep updating your content via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google+ and other similar social media channels, you automatically become more visible to your targeted audience. Increased visibility has a positive effect on buyer psychology. The more we see a brand online, the more we are familiarized with it. Social media presence increases trust and buys you credibility. This is a very old-school concept, however, it still stands strong in the generation run by social media marketing.
How do you choose the correct social media platform?
It is never a one-step process and neither is it black and white.
Every platform has its own advantages and disadvantages, and you need to pick one the suits your brand requirements.
Now, there’s one shortcut you can follow to pick the right social media channel for your brand. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals.
S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Your social media channel should have these qualities.
Specific: you should be able to set specific goals. Research shows, short-term goals always have a higher chance of completion. Before setting a goal, ask yourself the following questions-
• What is my brand goal?
• How should I achieve it?
• Where should it take place?
Measurable: all the changes and your ROI should be measurable. This is a very basic requirement of any brand and marketing.
Achievable: In addition to being specific, your goals also need to be attainable.
Realistic: Short-term goals also mean you take into account your current brand value, profits, investment and marketing chances. Down to earth goals have more chances of success.
Timely: If you don’t have a timeframe for achieving your goals, you will be in big trouble. If you have been working with short-term goals for a while, you may have already noticed this. Once the timeframe keeps increasing, the goals start costing your brand money than bringing in profit. Setting a practical time frame for a project/goal will keep you (and your team) motivated.
We won’t make the mistake of trying to make you believe that brand marketing via social media is easy. It can be quite tricky without guidance. These are a few ways to make sure that your brand benefits the most from its social media presence.
