If you are wondering how to use social media to drive traffic to your web page, you’ve come to the right place.
Many small businesses use content to build their audience and increase website traffic. Unfortunately, they may not be fully utilizing the value of each piece of content they create. If you are truly serious about your business and the content you produce, you should care about driving as much traffic as possible.
A fantastic way to do this is by using social media!
Why is Social Media Important?
3.96 billion people use social media globally, with 70 percent of the US population having at least one social media account! Evidently, there is massive potential using social media to not only bolster business but increase your internet presence.
How to Choose the Right Social Media Channel For Your Business
As social media is one of the most effective marketing tools a small business has at its disposal, you should carefully consider which social platforms to use. With various social platforms out there such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, it can be difficult to choose. Each platform offers specific value and different applications and nuances. What works well for one small business may not work well for another.
First, consider the nature of your business. If your business wants to gain visibility and interact with customers, platforms like Instagram and Facebook are best. If your business wants to build personal connections with clients, perhaps you should consider focusing on LinkedIn.
Then, evaluate your core target audience, client demographics, and then use the platform where that ideal customer usually hangs out. Do your research and then it’s up to you to test, test, test.
How to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic
Once you have determined the appropriate social platforms for your business, it’s time to start creating content that sells.
You need to create content that directly appeals to your target, core audience. To drive traffic to your site you need to have a strategy behind your social media content that encourages clients to visit your site. If there is no strategy, the traffic will not follow.
Use SMART to Develop Strategic Goals
To create a strategy that will drive engagement, start by using the SMART method.
SMART is simply a way to create goals that are realistic and achievable. This method gives you a framework for developing goals and a strategy that makes sense for your business. SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Your content strategy should meet all of these goals.
For example, you want to increase traffic to your website through social media. Take this information and work it into a SMART framework.
SMART Goal Framework
Specific: Specify your target audience. A specific social media strategy has to have a target group of customers. Knowing your audience will help you create content that truly resonates.
Measurable: Identify measurable KPIs for your social media strategy. Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) are important as they will help you keep track of your campaigns and see what’s working and what’s not.
Attainable: Set achievable goals to maximize impact. Consider your team and resources. What are you actually capable of doing? Do the research and identify goals that are attainable given what you have.
Relevant: Do relevant market research to understand what works. Your social media strategy should be designed using competitor analysis and market research to identify what topics and content types resonate with your target audience and will encourage the most engagement.
Time-based: The final aspect of the SMART goal framework is to ensure your goals are time-bound. Creating time limits will help you see whether or not you are achieving your goals or if your social media strategy needs to be updated.
It can be extremely overwhelming to develop a content plan for your business! Many business owners are too overwhelmed with day-to-day operations to figure out what to post to Twitter, let alone an entire plan! Don’t worry. If this seems overwhelming to you, that’s where we can help.
We are experts in all things digital and social media marketing related. We have created a free Marketing Cheatsheet just for people like you! Download it today to evaluate where your marketing plan stands.
What to Post on Social Media
Now, you should have the framework to start gathering data on your target audience and compiling content ideas.
The next step is to consider what to post on social media. This one should be easy! If you don’t already have ideas in mind after researching using the above SMART framework, then look at your competitors. Learn through imitation.
Evaluate what works for those who are successful in your niche and let their success inspire yours.
Then, test it out! Do your followers enjoy infographics, carousel posts, or short videos? Take your time and see what works. Each platform offers analytics. You’re probably familiar with Google Analytics. Well, many platforms such as Instagram offer in-app analytics that you can easily use to evaluate your progress.
Once you have created high-quality content for your socials, there are a few more steps you can take to ensure traffic to your site.
Be Active Regularly
While the algorithms for social platforms are a bit of a mystery, there is one aspect that isn’t so mysterious – every social platform, while different from each other, want you to stay on as long as possible. Thus, their algorithms encourage and reward users that are regularly active on the platforms. It is not only good practice to show up regularly for your followers, but it can boost your account.
Each social platform has its own nuances and optimization suggestions. It may take some time to see what works for your content. Keep your communication friendly and consistent. To do this, post regularly, responds quickly to any questions, DMs, or comments, and be a part of the community.
Be Engaging
Remember that people ultimately are on the other end of the screen. How would you interact with a client face-to-face? You want to keep your followers engaged! If they are engaged, they will want to spend more time with you and your product or service.
Creating helpful, useful, and relevant content that people will want to click on will bring in more traffic to your site.
Consider your target audience’s interests and values. What questions do they want to be answered? What things do they like? You may want to consider a guest post, for example.
Use these questions to bolster interest from your audience. Luckily, it’s now easier than ever to engage your audience.
Each social media platform offers a variety of tools for you to use at your disposal. Some examples of engaging include asking questions, polling your audience, and holding surveys. Anything that encourages your audience to interact with you is important!
Share, Share, Share
Another way to use social media to drive website traffic is to use it to bolster the impact of each piece of content your craft. For example, if your team writes a great blog post as part of their content marketing plan, social share it. Not only will sharing the post work as content for your accounts, but will encourage people to click and visit your site.
Additionally, many social platforms offer advertising opportunities. For any small business owners, budget is often an issue. Luckily, Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads make it affordable to run ads to drive traffic. You can run an ad for only $1!
Putting It All Together
Using social media as part of your marketing strategy could greatly increase organic traffic to your site! However, you will have the most impact by coordinating your marketing goals.
Combine your content marketing, email marketing, digital marketing and social media marketing strategies into one comprehensive plan. Every part of the puzzle of your business’ marketing strategy should complement the other. When it does, your website traffic will benefit. Download our FREE Ultimate Guide to Marketing Cheatsheet here to kickstart your marketing goals!
Or, contact us today to schedule your free consultation.
