How to Drive Website Traffic Through Social Media
Gavin Foley
Global Talent Acquisition, Employer Brand & HR Tech Specialist | Driving Fair, Inclusive Hiring Practices to Tackle Ageism and Shape Diverse Workforces
Social media is a popular way for businesses to engage with their target audiences. You might even post on Facebook or respond to a few tweets. What’s the big deal?
92% of small business?owners who use social media ?consider it?important for their business . Why?
For starters, social media can help you build brand recognition, foster a community around your business, and?grow your bottom line.?
So how can you use social media to help your business? You can start by driving traffic to your website. Below I’ll share eight simple and effective tips to help you do that!
Getting Started with Social Media for Business
If you’re entering the world of social media for business, Welcome!
You might assume the only options you have are the giants like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
These are fantastic options (and essential!) for any type of business, but there are other options worth looking into as well. For example:
But with so many platforms, each offering different things, how do you decide which to focus on?
Follow your customers.
Research the demographics for each platform.
Who tends to use that platform most? Do these demographics fit within your buyer personas? If so, add it to your list and get to work!
The Importance of Targets.
Like any marketing campaign, the basis of your social media activity should be goals and key performance indicators.
This is how you’ll measure success, and determine whether the platform you’re working on is actually effective.?There’s not much point in investing time into Pinterest, for example, when your ideal customer isn’t active there, right?
Goals could be anything from?growing your number of followers X% in six months?to increasing social referral traffic by [50%].
Whatever you decide your goal is, stick to it and refer to it .?Don’t let it become another never-again visited document that slips to the bottom of your Google Drive.
For the rest of this article, I’m going to focus on one goal: driving traffic.?Here’s how you can do it!
How to Drive Website Traffic Through Social Media
1. Fill in your profile.
What’s the first thing people see when they click your social media page?
Your profile!
Whether it’s your Twitter bio, Facebook About section or LinkedIn company page, your profile shows visitors information about your business.
That makes it the perfect spot to tell everyone a little about your business, and drop a link to your website.
Social media now drives 31% of all?referral traffic . You can get a slice of that action by adding these backlinks to your site.
If people like the type of content you’re sharing and discussing, they’ll likely search where they can get more.
Not only does this backlink give readers a chance to click-through to see what you’re all about, but you’ll have generated another visitor to your site!
Action Step:?Make sure there’s a link to your website’s homepage on all your social media profiles.
2. Promote your blog content.
You put tons of effort into writing content for your blog, and want the world to see your latest masterpiece. But before you know it, two months have passed and only few people have feasted their eyes on it.
What point is there for?creating great content ?if people aren’t going to read it? You can?fix this by promoting your posts on social media.
You don’t have to create 10 blog posts per month before you can share your content on social media and start seeing tangible results. You can start promoting at any point, with any piece of content.
After all, you’re always building your profile and recent followers might’ve missed content you published weeks ago.
Start by creating a social media schedule that promotes your old content. You can do this using tools like?Agorapulse ,?Social Pilot , SEMrush and Tailwind.
You can also repurpose your blog posts to get more use out of them. Options include:
Promoting your blog content with a variety of messages will keep your feed fresh and attract your target audience to your website.
Action Step:?For each blog post on your site, create a document with an extra 5-10 blog post titles. Add these to your social scheduling tool, along with the URL of your article, to drive traffic back to old blog content.
3. Make your content easy to share.
What’s better than knowing people are reading your blog content? Seeing that they’ve shared it with their friends and co-workers!
Chances are you’ve spent?part of your lunch break or evening browsing Facebook. You’ve seen a friend share an interesting link or video, and you’ve clicked-through to learn more.
That’s the same degree of sharing you should be fostering for your content.
Allow – and encourage – existing site visitors to share content hosted on your blog by embedding a social sharing tool.
You could also include buttons so readers can share interesting facts or?snippets with their own followers. (Linking back to your content, as well).
This option doesn’t display the share count, but it gives visitors an incentive to share.?Not everybody has time to craft copy for their social update, so why not provide them with it to take that stress away?
Action Step:?Install a plugin that displays social shares on your website, such as?Cresta’s Social Share Counter ?or?AddThis .?Viewers will be able to share your content with the world with the click of a button.
4. Post when your audience is active.
What good is posting on social media?if your target audience isn’t online to see it? Sure, you might get some hits, but are they likely to care what you have to say? Or will they only contribute to your ever-increasing?bounce rate ?
The best time to post on social media is when your target audience is most active – their “peak time.”
When building your social strategy, follow these general guidelines for when it’s?best to post on social media?
Once you’re more established,?start testing the waters to see what times drive the most engagements and click-throughs.
Once you’ve collected this data, optimize your posting schedule around your followers’ activity!
Schedule posts that appeal to your audience most during these blocks of time, and try and be active when your audience is online.
Action Step:?Use insights to analyse when your audience are most active. Then build your promotion strategy around it.
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5. Focus on sharing visual content.
It’s easy to scroll through a social media feed and miss content that might be interesting or otherwise helpful.?Stop potential site visitors from doing the same by sharing visual content that stands out.
Did you know that?visual content ?is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content?
Also, tweets with images received 150% more retweets than those without. So, if you’re using visual graphics on Twitter, you could position your content (and website links!) in front of more ideal customers.
Add elements like:
These will make your audience more likely to click your social update,?and?share it themselves!
But, you could also enjoy sharing links to your site, along with your fancy graphics, on visual content sharing platforms such as Pinterest. If each post includes your website’s URL, you’re set to see a surge in social traffic.
Action Step:?Use?Canva ?to create a graphic for each main social channel you’re looking to drive traffic from. You can edit a template that’s already optimized for each platform, or build one from scratch.
6. Engage with your audience.
It’s easy to overlook the social aspect of social media, but that’s not a mistake you want to make. Social media is unique in that you can engage with your target audience. You can answer questions and get feedback in real-time. Improve the experience people have with your brand.
Engaging with your audience is also an effective way to drive traffic to your website. Improving your audience’s opinion of your company.
Only 11% of receive replied from brands. You can stand out with a few personal comments. Here are a few ways how:
Take part?in Twitter chats.
Look for topics and chats relevant to your niche by searching:?[NICHE + “twitter chats”].
You can also go to Twitter and search a topic to see if there are any good conversations happening.
Once you’ve found chats to take part in, answer relevant questions. You can also help people solve problems, and generally contribute to the conversation.
Impressed people with your authority, and will likely click-through to your profile to learn more about your business.
Respond to tweets and comments mentioning you and your business.
This one should go without saying, but all too often businesses miss the mark. When someone tweets to or otherwise engages with your business, engage back!
Their interest creates the perfect opportunity for you to show your business’s value. In so doing, you may even generate a click to your website or a conversion to a sale.
Don’t ignore your notifications and mentions!
Search for relevant hashtags and spark conversations.
If you’re an authority in an industry or niche, pay special attention to hashtags and discussions. Use relevant hashtags when sharing your own content. Spark up conversations with people who include them in their social media posts.
Smarthash ?is an awesome tool to find hashtags you may not have spotted.
Each of these hashtags may create opportunities to link to a resource on your website. It’s important that your conversations and interactions are genuine.
People will appreciate a relevant link far more than one that seems too much like an advertisement.
Contribute to?relevant forums.
Forums are online communities that ask questions, offer knowledge and share links to content that’s relevant to their niche.
You can find them on Quora and Reddit, with industries ranging from digital marketing to cats.
The people engaging in these forums are dedicating their time to it. They want to learn more, and talk about the subject with other like-minded people.
Why not position your content in front of these people to drive traffic back to your site?
Action Step:?Create a list of Twitter chats you’d like to take part in, and add them to your calendar. While you’re there, schedule in 15-30 minutes to engage with your followers on social media every day.
7. Optimize your calls-to-action.
Ever write the perfect tweet, only to check back and see how little engagement it actually received?
It’s disappointing, I know.
You can increase how many clicks your social media shares receive by using calls-to-action in your post.
Calls-to-action tell a user exactly what you want them to do.
I use them in blog content and landing pages all the time, but they’re also great for convincing your audience to click-through to your website on social media!
Add phrases like:
They’ll persuade readers to actually click on the content you’re sharing, driving up your referral traffic from each platform.
Not convinced? What if I told you CTAs on your Facebook page can?increase click-through rate ?by 285%?
(I bet you’d click that link!)
Make sure you’re only adding CTAs to content that will benefit your audience. We don’t want it to look like you’re sharing clickbait, after all.
Action Step:?Jot down a list of calls-to-action you can test on your social profiles. Use each one at least 5 times. Record metrics (such as engagement, link clicks, and profile visits) for each variation. This will show you which works best for your audience.
8. Test paid social advertising.
Social advertising is an effective way to reach new people who haven’t yet heard of your brand or website.
But what if you’re struggling with driving traffic to your website through social media?
If you have the marketing budget,?social advertising ?is worth experimenting with.?That’s because you don’t need to break the bank with a Facebook campaign, where the?average cost-per-click ?(CPC) ranges from $0.45 to $0.70 per click.
When trialling?Facebook ads , create a saved audience of people who are likely to want what you have to offer. Optimize your campaign for Link Clicks.?Gear your social advertising towards your ideal customer’s stage in the buying journey.
Now You Know 8 Steps.. What Will You Do Next?
Now you know 8 steps to drive traffic to your website through social media, what will you do??
I offer a range of?Social Media Management Services ,?Paid Advertising Services ,?one to One Coaching , and if you are already ahead, I can even provide?Social Media Audits .?
Head to?MeasuredSocial.co.uk ,?book a 15 minute call with me ?to get your FREE proposal, or just drop me an?email ?to say hi.?
I hope this blog gave you a little insight into the importance of Social Media in your business strategy.?
Speak soon, Gavin ??