How to Drive Traffic from Social Media
[Updated 11/21/2022]
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard the term “content marketing.”
It’s not a new concept, but it’s become one of the biggest buzzwords in online advertising. And for good reason: Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing, and generates about three times as many leads.
But there is, of course, a catch: You have to get lots of eyes on that brilliant content you create. The best blog in the world isn’t going to do much for you if no one knows it’s there. That’s where social media comes in.
Here are just a few ways you can use your favorite social networks to drive traffic — and potential customers — to your content:
Big Two: Facebook and Twitter
Let’s get the big guys out of the way first.
Facebook and Twitter are, far and away, the most popular social networks right now. With 2.934 billion monthly active users on Facebook and more than 450 million active Twitter users, you’re missing a golden marketing opportunity if you’re not on at least one of the two.
But successfully promoting your content on these platforms is a little more complex than just posting links to your articles and calling it done. You have to pay attention to the social aspect of the platform, and spend time building a good reputation and a following.
You can do this by engaging with your audience
- Answer questions.
- Reply to comments directed to your company.
- Encourage feedback.
Your effort here will make your followers more willing to click on and share your links when you do post them.
Experiment with your Facebook CTA because it is a great way to hear from your followers. You can put something like “Contact” and hook it up to your contact-us page or “Call us” and enter your business phone number there (don’t use your personal numbers though).
Tip: Use Text Optimizer to come up with popular questions to ask on your page and invite your audience to answer. This is a great way to engage your audience and even collect some content ideas for your site:
YouTube
Video is a great online marketing tool, all on its own. It’s very SEO-friendly, boosts audience engagement, and is very popular with website visitors.
That’s why YouTube now reports that it attracts more than a billion unique visitors every month. You can grab a piece of that audience — and help support your content marketing efforts — by uploading entertaining and/or educational videos.
Tutorials, entertaining staff introductions, customer testimonials…all of these make great video topics. You can help drive traffic to your other content marketing efforts by including links in your video descriptions.
Action item: If you don’t have a Youtube channel yet, here’s a cool and free Youtube channel name generator to come up with a cool branding for it.
Visual Networks: Tumblr and Instagram
Photos are another great way to boost engagement with your content, and Tumblr and Instagram are two great platforms for sharing your photography.
To be successful on Tumblr, you’ll need to create a fun, engaging atmosphere. Big brands that have been successful on Tumblr include Coca-Cola (with an overall “happiness” theme and lots of animated GIFs, which are popular on the platform) and American Express OPEN Forum (which shares infographics and interesting content from around the web, and uses pop culture language).
For Instagram, you’ll need to write compelling captions that relate the photo to your brand and use hashtags to add relevant keywords. And, as with other social platforms, you’ll want to have a good mix of content from your own blog or website and from other places around the web.
Tip: Instagram now allows links in stories and reels, so it is now a great lead generation tool. Use WP Forms to create all kinds of generation forms to link from Instagram and collect free leads!
Content marketing can be a powerful method to promote your website.
The key is in promoting it properly, making social media the perfect final component to your content strategy.
Ann Smarty
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