If there’s one thing that content marketers are always talking about is driving more organic traffic to their websites. But recent statistics show that we’re amid a social media revolution, so focusing on organic traffic while neglecting social media may be counterproductive.
Social media is responsible for driving over 31% of a site’s overall referral traffic according to this Shareaholic post, so it’s high time content marketers become aware of this shift from search to social.
1. Strategize, plan, don’t automatize
There are hundreds of social networking websites and each of them represent a unique opportunity for you to connect to your audience. The question, though, is to choose which of those platforms can best suit the needs of your audience and serve you best. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are clear go-to platforms, not only because of their enormous user bases but also because of their influence potential.
Using software that automatically updates a Facebook or a Twitter page can be a great time saver, but remember that you’re interacting with people. Your brand needs a human touch and while some things can be automated, make sure that you also directly engage with your audience, either by posting team photos or by showcasing your creative side.
2. Make Posts Social-media Friendly
Though exceptional content is the key factor in determining your success, there are some tiny adjustments that can turn a great piece into a social media goldmine. Including easy-to-tweet quotes into your article, as Rob New did, which will greatly increase the odds that readers also engage with your content via Twitter. Neil Patel and Kissmetrics also experimented with this technique when creating a simple, 3-word advice list on improving your business. It’s such a unique approach that makes readers want to engage.
3. Be Valuable
Keep in mind that you’re interacting with real people and they often need real solutions. Social media is the perfect solution for you to become a trusted, unbiased reference. So stay away from only promoting your products and services and focus on social updates that provide real value for your followers. Such an approach works on other types of social media platforms if you take the time to adapt it correctly.
The key is to build a community. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn, your approach should focus on providing valuable answers. If you’ve created groups (businesses benefit greatly from creating or becoming members of groups as they come together with like-minded people), you announce great products or blog posts from time to time. Be careful, though, to do so sparingly.
Junta42 founder Joe Pulizzi’s 4-1-1 rule is a great starting point. What he suggests is to approach social media carefully. For any self-serving tweet, make sure to re-tweet one relevant tweet and also share four other pieces of valuable content that your readers can find useful. Feel free to edit this approach in accordance to your readers but never forget to share the love.
4. Think of Engagement Rates
Since you’re not trying to overdo it with too much posting, you only have a limited window of opportunity. So make sure to choose the best Facebook publishing times. Several studies suggest that Saturdays and Sundays are great publishing days since engagement rates are significantly higher than during the workweek. Now, even such studies have to be taken with a grain of salt. Your blog is unique and statistics don’t always reflect the reality of your particular situation. It’s best to do some research of your own and consult your Facebook insights. You may have an international audience and if that’s the case, you should account for time zone differences.
Personalizing your posting schedule and habits in accordance to your audience is much more important than sticking to statistically-proven publishing times.
5. Worth with and through Your Employees
Facebook is nothing more than a facilitator: it allows people to connect with other people. Your employees also have social media profiles and asking them to mention your company as part of their social media bio information (@username mentions on Twitter for instance or Facebook fan pages) can be a great way to promote your business.
6. Consider High Conversion Keywords
There are some keywords that, when used correctly and in connection to specific social networks, generate more engagement. As you may have expected, they differ from one social platform to another. While Facebook users prefer keywords such as “inspire”, “deals”, “submit”, “tell us”, “discount”, ”warns”, Twitter users respond better to “follow”, “social media”, “top”, “check out”. LinkedIn users seemed to respond well to words such as “increased”, “improved”, “developed”, “created”, and “researched”.
7. Don’t Ignore the Facebook News Feed Algorithm
It’s only logical that you try to understand how Facebook’s news feed algorithm works if you want your content to reach as many people as possible. Brian Boland explained that over 1,500 stories compete on average to appear in a user’s news feed. As a result of the massive increase of shared content on Facebook, the social media platform’s algorithms have changed to ensure that users engage with the stories that are featured in its News Feed.
For a story to be featured in Facebook’s news feed, thousands of factors are taken into consideration, including the post creator’s previous performance, the post type itself, how recent that post is and how users interact with that particular post. Basically, the more activity your post experiences, the better its chances are of being included in news feeds.
8. Links vs. Images
Link posts seem to be triumphing. In fact, they generate a whopping 82% more page views as compared to posts containing photographs and links in the caption. The question is whether you should refocus your strategy on sharing links. Experts agree that you should naturally share content (in all its forms) with your readers. That means sharing links, photos, videos or status updates. Then use the data you obtain from analyzing Facebook insights to understand what your audience best resonates with and increase that particular post type without neglecting the others.
9. Take Care of the Little Things
When trying to achieve so many with your social media strategy, it’s easy to overlook things that seem less relevant. Don’t forget, though, that first impressions are the most important (and sometimes only) chance you get to impress potential clients. So make sure that your profile is correctly set up and looks professional. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are not your website or blog: if you want to create an account for your website, by all means, do so. But make sure that you have a separate profile on Facebook and Twitter and use them when engaging your readers.
10. Use Facebook Hashtags
Since Facebook introduced hashtags to their platform, bloggers and business owners have yet another ace up their sleeve when it comes to driving traffic. Incorporating Facebook hashtags in certain posts may help bring in readers who aren’t already following you or your page. The key, though, is to use less than 2 hashtags in any given post. Their guide to hashtags offers relevant information as to the correct use of hashtags.
11. Consider Promoted Posts if Budget Allows
It may seem difficult to get traffic from Facebook if you don’t invest in promoted posts. Ads and promoted posts are a great solution for quick traffic boosts.
The idea is to get creative: after all, it’s originality that would spark your interest. Test your strategies and see what works best. Oh, and don’t forget to share your tips and tricks in the comments section below!
Effective Tips on Using Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Site
If there’s one thing that content marketers are always talking about is driving more organic traffic to their websites. But recent statistics show that we’re amid a social media revolution, so focusing on organic traffic while neglecting social media may be counterproductive.
Social media is responsible for driving over 31% of a site’s overall referral traffic according to this Shareaholic post, so it’s high time content marketers become aware of this shift from search to social. Here are some tips on how you can harness the power of social media and drive more traffic to your site.
1. Strategize, plan, don’t automatize
There are hundreds of social networking websites and each of them represent a unique opportunity for you to connect to your audience. The question, though, is to choose which of those platforms can best suit the needs of your audience and serve you best. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are clear go-to platforms, not only because of their enormous user bases but also because of their influence potential.
Using software that automatically updates a Facebook or a Twitter page can be a great time saver, but remember that you’re interacting with people. Your brand needs a human touch and while some things can be automated, make sure that you also directly engage with your audience, either by posting team photos or by showcasing your creative side.
2. Make Posts Social-media Friendly
Though exceptional content is the key factor in determining your success, there are some tiny adjustments that can turn a great piece into a social media goldmine. Including easy-to-tweet quotes into your article, as Rob New did, will greatly increase the odds that readers also engage with your content via Twitter. Neil Patel and Kissmetrics also experimented with this technique when creating a simple, 3-word advice list on improving your business. It’s such a unique approach that makes readers want to engage.
3. Be Valuable
Keep in mind that you’re interacting with real people and they often need real solutions. Social media is the perfect solution for you to become a trusted, unbiased reference. So stay away from only promoting your products and services and focus on social updates that provide real value for your followers. Such an approach works on other types of social media platforms if you take the time to adapt it correctly.
The key is to build a community. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn, your approach should focus on providing valuable answers. If you’ve created groups (businesses benefit greatly from creating or becoming members of groups as they come together with like-minded people), you announce great products or blog posts from time to time. Be careful, though, to do so sparingly.
Junta42 founder Joe Pulizzi’s 4-1-1 rule is a great starting point. What he suggests is to approach social media carefully. For any self-serving tweet, make sure to re-tweet one relevant tweet and also share four other pieces of valuable content that your readers can find useful. Feel free to edit this approach in accordance to your readers but never forget to share the love.
4. Think of Engagement Rates
Since you’re not trying to overdo it with too much posting, you only have a limited window of opportunity. So make sure to choose the best Facebook publishing times. Several studies suggest that Saturdays and Sundays are great publishing days since engagement rates are significantly higher than during the workweek. Now, even such studies have to be taken with a grain of salt. Your blog is unique and statistics don’t always reflect the reality of your particular situation. It’s best to do some research of your own and consult your Facebook insights. You may have an international audience and if that’s the case, you should account for time zone differences.
Personalizing your posting schedule and habits in accordance to your audience is much more important than sticking to statistically-proven publishing times.
5. Worth with and through Your Employees
Facebook is nothing more than a facilitator: it allows people to connect with other people. Your employees also have social media profiles and asking them to mention your company as part of their social media bio information (@username mentions on Twitter for instance or Facebook fan pages) can be a great way to promote your business.
6. Consider High Conversion Keywords
There are some keywords that, when used correctly and in connection to specific social networks, generate more engagement. As you may have expected, they differ from one social platform to another. While Facebook users prefer keywords such as “inspire”, “deals”, “submit”, “tell us”, “discount”, ”warns”, Twitter users respond better to “follow”, “social media”, “top”, “check out”. LinkedIn users seemed to respond well to words such as “increased”, “improved”, “developed”, “created”, and “researched”.
7. Don’t Ignore the Facebook News Feed Algorithm
It’s only logical that you try to understand how Facebook’s news feed algorithm works if you want your content to reach as many people as possible. Brian Boland explained that over 1,500 stories compete on average to appear in a user’s news feed. As a result of the massive increase of shared content on Facebook, the social media platform’s algorithms have changed to ensure that users engage with the stories that are featured in its News Feed.
For a story to be featured in Facebook’s news feed, thousands of factors are taken into consideration, including the post creator’s previous performance, the post type itself, how recent that post is and how users interact with that particular post. Basically, the more activity your post experiences, the better its chances are of being included in news feeds.
8. Links vs. Images
Link posts seem to be triumphing. In fact, they generate a whopping 82% more page views as compared to posts containing photographs and links in the caption. The question is whether you should refocus your strategy on sharing links. Experts agree that you should naturally share content (in all its forms) with your readers. That means sharing links, photos, videos or status updates. Then use the data you obtain from analyzing Facebook insights to understand what your audience best resonates with and increase that particular post type without neglecting the others.
9. Take Care of the Little Things
When trying to achieve so many with your social media strategy, it’s easy to overlook things that seem less relevant. Don’t forget, though, that first impressions are the most important (and sometimes only) chance you get to impress potential clients. So make sure that your profile is correctly set up and looks professional. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are not your website or blog: if you want to create an account for your website, by all means, do so. But make sure that you have a separate profile on Facebook and Twitter and use them when engaging your readers.
10. Use Facebook Hashtags
Since Facebook introduced hashtags to their platform, bloggers and business owners have yet another ace up their sleeve when it comes to driving traffic. Incorporating Facebook hashtags in certain posts may help bring in readers who aren’t already following you or your page. The key, though, is to use less than 2 hashtags in any given post. Their guide to hashtags offers relevant information as to the correct use of hashtags.
11. Consider Promoted Posts if Budget Allows
It may seem difficult to get traffic from Facebook if you don’t invest in promoted posts. Ads and promoted posts are a great solution for quick traffic boosts.
The idea is to get creative: after all, it’s originality that would spark your interest. Test your strategies and see what works best. Oh, and don’t forget to share your tips and tricks in the comments section below!
from Darlene Milligan http://ift.tt/1R74RrG via transformational marketing
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1L8oApN
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