Social networking has become one of, if not the, primary marketing tool for businesses around the world. As one of the most effective means for generating traffic, it makes sense to spend time optimizing your strategy for the most traffic possible. Here are three top tips for getting more traffic from social networking sites.
#1 Content
The purpose of a social networking site is to share. What do you share? Why, you share content of course. Print material, audio files, video, and photographs are all a form of content. As it relates to content, there are six basic rules of thumb to strategize:
* Schedule it – Schedule your content so you’re delivering it on a consistent and regular basis. You can do this manually or you can use one of the many scheduling services developed for the key social networking sites. HootSuite, for example, lets you schedule Tweets, which you can also link to Facebook for double duty posting.
* Plan it – Planning your content in advance simply makes sense. It ensures you have a regular contribution that is relevant and valuable to your audience. Of course, you can also add posts as appropriate.
* Tease it – Often, publishing an entire article just doesn’t make sense. You want to drive traffic to your website. Tease it on the social networking platform and link to your website for more.
* Evaluate it – Is your content valuable to your audience? You want to provide useful information so they’ll automatically want to visit your website for more.
* Multi-task it – Let your content do double duty. Use it to provide value and promote at the same time. For example, are you launching a new product? Offer a tip to solving a customer’s potential problem and then link to your sales page for the complete solution.
* Brand it – Social networking is about building a community. When you brand your content to your personality, you build an audience of followers. They’ll naturally be drawn to your website or blog where they can broaden their experience with you.
#2 Interaction
Along with posting content, a large part of driving traffic to your website is interaction. If you’re simply posting content and not responding or interacting, you’re not going to have much luck. There are three main ways to interact on social networking sites:
* Comment – When someone posts a question or a statement, respond with a comment. This isn’t a self-promotion tactic; this is a way to enhance liking, build a relationship and a following. Some social networking tactics take time.
* Share – Repost some of the posts that are relevant to your target audience. On Facebook you can do this by clicking “Share,” and on Twitter you can do this by clicking “ReTweet.”
* Link love – Linking to the websites and blogs of fellow social networkers helps build your community and it often generates a reciprocal link. This opens your profile up to their audience which gives your business more exposure.
#3 Integrate
Integrate your social networking activities into your traffic generation and marketing strategy. What do you use right now that can be integrated with your social networking efforts?
* Email marketing? Include a link to your social networking profile in your email signature
* Website/Blog? Include social networking interactions or buttons on your website
* Article marketing? Link to your new content on your social networking sites
Social networking drives traffic in a number of ways. It helps you build a community of followers. This creates a reciprocal relationship. You’re participating with your audience on social sites and on your website or blog. It also enables you to promote and link to particular pages on your site, which generates instant traffic. When you’re creating your social networking and traffic-generation strategy, keep these traffic-generation concepts in mind for greater success.